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Studies  in  the 
American  Race  Problem 


Studies  in  the 
American  Race  Problem 


By 
ALFRED    HOLT    STONE 


With  an  Introduction    and  Three  Papers  by 
WALTER  F.  WILLCOX 


New  York 

Doubleday,   Page   &  Company 
1908 


to 


ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

INCLUDING   THAT  OP   TRANSLATION    INTO    FOREIGN    LANGUAGES, 
INCLUDING   THB    SCANDINAVIAN 


COPYRIGHT,    1908,    BY 
DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE  &   COMPANY 
PUBLISHED,    SEPTEMBER,    1908 


TO   MY    FATHER    AND   MOTHER 
CONNECTING  LINKS   WITH   THE   OLD   REGIME 


176775 


GENERAL 


If  any  one  is  able  to  convince  me  and  show  that  I  do 
not  think  or  act  right,  I  will  gladly  change,  for  I  seek 
the  truth,  by  which  no  man  was  ever  injured.  But 
he  is  injured  who  abides  in  his  error  and  ignorance. 

— Marcus  Aurelius 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  in  which  these  papers  are  conceived 
may  be  read  in  their  first  word  —  the  spirit  in  which 
they  are  written  in  their  last.  Neither  is  knowingly 
departed  from. 

It  is  a  difficult  thing  to  do  —  this  telling  of  the  truth, 
the  narrating  of  facts,  without  at  once  creating  the 
impression  of  a  partisan  temper  or  a  biased  mind. 
Yet  so  far  as  this  writer  knows  he  has  neither. 

For  a  number  of  years  I  have  studied  the  various 
phenomena  of  racial  contact  which  we  conveniently 
designate  the  race  problem.  I  have  also  studied  the 
literature  which  treats  of  this  problem.  If  the  facts 
are  confusing  and  difficult  of  comprehension  the  liter 
ature  is  scarcely  less  so.  It  fails,  it  seems  to  me,  at  a 
vital  point,  in  that  it  is  based  on  either  side  upon  an 
assumed  lack  of  honesty  and  absence  of  fairness  on  the 
other.  The  truth  is  that  the  conflicting  American 
attitude  on  the  race  problem  is  an  entirely  natural 
product  of  the  sectionalism  which  almost  from  the 
beginning  has  saturated  and  beclouded  the  whole 
subject.  It  is  a  humanly  difficult  matter  for  people  in 
different  environments  to  look  at  the  basic  cause  of 
their  differences  through  the  same  glasses.  One  trouble 
is  that  we  have  made  too  little  honest  effort  to  accom 
plish  this  difficult  but  necessary  end.  By  reason  of  our 

ix 


x        The  American  Race  Problem 

extent  of  territory  and  variety  of  economic  conditions 
we  are  confronted  with  the  probability  of  an  indefinite 
continuance  of  the  physical  differences  which  are  the 
real  basis  of  our  differences  of  mental  attitude.  It  is 
not  possible  that  sensible  people,  bound  together  by 
innumerable  natural  ties  of  race,  ancestry,  history, 
religion,  and  institutions,  can  regard  with  unconcern 
the  perpetuation  of  differences  over  a  matter  which  is 
primarily  artificial  in  character.  We  owe  it  to  our 
selves  and  to  those  who  come  after  us  earnestly  to  seek 
the  removal  of  stumbling  blocks  to  the  mutual  respect 
and  esteem,  the  better  appreciation,  the  more  fraternal 
regard  and  good  will  which  make  for  national  unity 
of  thought  and  purpose  —  for  national  peace  and 
happiness. 

And  it  is  an  intensely  practical  matter.  The  child 
who  was  born  in  Boston  in  1860  grew  to  manhood 
amidst  surroundings  and  influences  which  through  no 
conscious  purpose  of  his  own  shaped  and  determined 
his  attitude  toward  the  American  race  problem  in  1890. 
The  man  of  the  same  age  in  Charleston  was  merely 
looking  at  the  same  problem  in  the  light  of  a  different 
environment.  Each  was  the  product  of  conditions 
entirely  outside  himself  and  in  the  creating  of  which 
he  had  no  possible  part.  In  so  far  as  these  men  typify 
the  great  mass  of  people  in  their  respective  sections 
their  conflicting  attitudes  are  entirely  normal.  They 
simply  accept  what  they  find,  and  think  and  feel  with 
out  seeking  for  a  reason  for  the  contrary  operations 
of  their  minds.  It  is  a  wholly  different  matter  with 


Preface 


XI 


either  when  he  undertakes  to  shape  the  opinions  of 
others.  He  then  assumes  a  duty  to  those  whom  he 
seeks  to  influence,  and  a  duty  to  the  public  at  large. 
When  he  ceases  to  play  an  entirely  passive  part  and 
essays  the  role  of  instructor  to  others,  he  assumes  like 
wise  a  responsibility  which  he  cannot  shirk  if  he  would. 
He  immediately  becomes  a  factor  in  determining, 
however  slightly,  the  current  of  popular  thought.  He 
will  play  his  part  in  shaping  that  current  either  toward 
the  perpetuation  of  misunderstanding  and  error  and  ill 
feeling,  or  in  the  direction  of  truth  and  the  just  appre 
hension  which  is  the  only  sure  foundation  of  lasting 
good  will.  He  cannot  write  a  line  on  this  much  vexed 
question  and  continue  to  occupy  a  purely  negative 
place.  He  at  once  becomes  an  active  agent  for  either 
good  or  harm. 

This  has  been  my  conception  of  the  responsibility 
and  duty  of  a  student  of  the  American  race  problem. 
My  only  hope  is  that  my  influence,  however  small, 
may  be  cast  upon  the  side  of  better  understanding, 
which  shall  make  for  mutual  respect  and  tolerance  for 
our  several  points  of  view.  My  purpose  is  to  interpret 
and  explain,  neither  speciously  to  defend  on  the  one 
hand  nor  uncharitably  to  condemn  upon  the  other. 
It  is  a  fundamental  tenet  of  my  philosophy  of  race 
relations  that  the  chief  sufferer  from  sectional  misunder 
standings  among  white  people  has  been  the  American 
Negro.  It  is  a  corollary  that  he  would  be  the  chief 
beneficiary  of  greater  accord  between  the  white  parties 
to  the  sectionalism  created  by  his  presence. 


xii      The  American  Race  Problem 

As  Professor  Willcox  says  in  his  introduction,  the 
papers  presented  here  "contain  no  plan  of  action,  but 
are  confined  to  the  necessary  preliminary  work  of  por 
traying  conditions.  Agreement  must  be  reached  on 
these  before  agreement  on  action  can  come  into  sight." 
The  value  of  most  discussions  of  this  general  subject  is 
impaired  by  having  imparted  to  them  the  tone  and 
purpose  of  special  pleas  for  some  favourite  "solution." 
Neither  contributor  to  this  volume  is  a  propagandist, 
and  neither  has  any  panacea  to  urge  for  conditions 
which  demand  intelligent  diagnosis  before  intelligent 
treatment  is  possible.  The  one  aim  of  these  studies 
is  to  set  forth  some  of  the  salient  facts  of  the  American 
race  problem,  and  to  point  out  some  of  the  fundamental 
principles  which  underlie  it  and  create  it.  The  hope  is 
indulged  that  there  is  also  suggested  the  necessity  for  a 
candid  recognition  of  the  truth  that  our  problem  is  not 
only  national  in  its  scope,  but  that  the  principles  which 
are  indicated  as  its  foundation  are  in  fact  of  universal 
application  in  shaping  the  phenomena  of  racial  contact. 
The  suggestion  or  advocacy  of  remedies  is  foreign  to 
such  a  purpose. 

For  some  years  I  have  been  working  on  a  study  the 
results  of  which  I  had  hoped  to  submit  by  this  time  in 
concrete  form  under  the  title  "Race  Relations  in 
America."  The  scope  of  the  work,  however,  has 
postponed  its  completion.  These  papers  in  the 
main  are  byproducts  of  investigations  in  the  broader 
field. 

Such  value  as  this  collection  may  possess  is  greatly 


Preface 


Xlll 


enhanced  through  the  addition  of  three  papers  by 
Professor  Walter  F.  Willcox.  These  papers  cover 
with  the  skill  of  the  trained  statistician  the  subjects  of 
Negro  criminality,  the  Negro's  economic  position,  and 
the  frequently  agitated  question  of  the  probable  in 
crease  of  the  race  in  this  country.  The  paper  on 
Negro  criminality  is  probably  the  most  widely  quoted 
(and  most  largely  misinterpreted)  contribution  made 
to  the  statistical  literature  of  the  general  subject  in 
recent  years.  In  justice  to  Professor  Willcox  I  should 
add  that  his  association  with  this  volume  must  not  be 
understood  as  in  the  least  degree  committing  him  to 
any  opinion  or  statement  contained  in  my  own  papers. 
For  these  I  alone  am  responsible. 

For  permission  to  use  previously  published  matter, 
I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  thanks  to  the  editors  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  the  Outlook,  the  publications  of  the 
American  Economic  Association,  the  American  Socio 
logical  Society,  and  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics. 
For  valued  assistance  in  many  ways  I  am  greatly 
indebted  to  Mr.  Julian  H.  Fort,  of  Dunleith,  and  to 
Mr.  R.  H.  Johnston,  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  for 
the  verification  of  references  and  the  preparation  of 
the  index. 

ALFRED  HOLT  STONB. 

Dunleith  Plantation,  Dunleith,  Miss. 
January  28,  1908. 


INTRODUCTION 

A  CONFERENCE  upon  race  problems  of  the  South  was 
held  at  Montgomery,  Ala.,  in  May,  1900,  and  I  was 
honoured  by  an  invitation  to  attend.  During  that 
meeting  I  fell  in  with  the  author  of  these  papers,  and 
the  acquaintance  then  pleasantly  begun  has  continued 
and  ripened  to  my  very  great  profit.  From  no  one 
have  I  learned  so  much  as  from  him  about  the  realities 
of  the  race  problems  in  the  South,  and  I  gladly  avail 
myself  of  this  opportunity  to  bespeak  for  his  contribu 
tions  to  the  subject  the  attention  and  study  which  their 
importance  deserves.  With  his  permission,  and  that 
of  the  editors  who  first  published  them,  this  collection 
includes  the  address  to  which  I  owe  my  invitation  to 
Montgomery,  and  two  other  contributions  of  mine  to 
the  study  of  American  race  problems. 

May  I  suggest  that  this  combination  of  writings 
within  one  volume  has  a  certain  typical  significance? 
Until  the  present  day  it  would  have  been  hard  for 
Massachusetts  and  Mississippi  to  join  hands  in  objective 
and  dispassionate  study  of  the  questions  which  so  long 
have  divided  those  states  and  the  country.  The  closet 
student  here  will  be  found  not  widely  at  variance  in  his 
conclusions  from  the  cotton  planter  and  business  man 
who  approaches  the  problem  by  a  different  avenue. 
The  statistician,  knowing  little  of  the  problem  beyond 

xv 


xvi  Introduction 

what  he  may  read  in  his  figures,  finds  in  Mr.  Stone's 
papers  a  needed  complement,  and  also  in  the  main  I 
believe  a  confirmation  of  his  results.  Thus,  North 
and  South,  theory  and  practice,  figures  and  concrete 
specific  experience  are  approaching  a  unity  of  conviction. 
The  essays  contain  no  plan  of  action  but  are  confined 
to  the  necessary  preliminary  work  of  portraying  condi 
tions.  Agreement  must  be  reached  on  these  before 
agreement  on  action  can  come  into  sight. 

WALTER  F.  WILLCOX. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface ix 

Introduction,  by  Walter  F.  Willcox       .  xv 


PART  ONE 
A  GENERAL  SURVEY 

I.  RACE  PROBLEM  CONTRASTS  AND  PARALLELS     .         3 

Difficulties  in  discussion  of  the  race  problem  —  In 
fluence  of  local  conditions  in  determining  the  problem 
— -  Illustrations  of  local  adaptations  of  standards  — 
Northern  attitude  toward  Southern  restrictive  legis 
lation' —  The  influence  of  the  numerical  strength  of  the 
Negro  in  determining  race  discrimination  —  Difficulty 
in_ge.tting  at  Negro's  point  of  view  —  Negro  writers 
on  Negro  opportunity,  North  and  South  —  Contrast 
between  Northern  and  Southern  "equality  of  the 
Negro" — Similarity  of  conditions  in  South  Africa  — 
Varying  political  relations  of  the  Negro  —  Propor 
tionate  population  and  Negro  suffrage  —  Effect  of 
numbers  on  the  constitutional  restrictions  on  the 
Negro  in  Western  states  —  Cape  Colony  and 
Mississippi  compared  in  suffrage  restrictions  — 
Theory  and  practice  in  governmental  policy. 

II.  FOUNDATIONS  OF  OUR  DIFFERENCES       .          .        40 

The  Mulatto  as  affecting  the  race  problem  —  Mulatto 
and  Negro  population  —  Comparative  distribution  of 
Negro  population,  North  and  South  —  Negro  urban 
population  in  the  North  American  race  attitude  the 
xvii 


iii     The  American  Race  Problem 


XVlll 


FOUNDATION  OP  OUR  DIFFERENCES   (Continued) 

normal  Anglo-Saxon  attitude  —  Massachusetts  atti 
tude  toward  Negroes  and  mulattoes  —  Northern  atti 
tude  toward  Southern  separation  of  the  races  — 
Provoking  causes  of  this  separation  —  Knowledge  of 
conditions  necessary  to  understanding  of  Southern  rela 
tions  to  the  Negro. 

PART   TWO 
SOME  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS 

III.  THE   NEGRO    IN    THE   YAZOO  -  MISSISSIPPI 

DELTA          .          .          .          .   •       .          .81 

The  race  problem  a  study  of  local  conditions  —  Loca 
tion  and  description  of  the  Delta  —  Its  importance  to 
the  future  of  the  Negro  —  Its  Negro  population  —  The 
white  population  not  a  labouring  class  —  The  old 
plantation  system  and  its  similarity  to  the  Delta 
agricultural  system  —  The  Census  definition  of  a  farm 
—  Relations  between  the  plantation  owner  and  the 
Negroes  —  Influence  of  these  relations  in  preventing 
rape  —  Necessity  of  attitude  of  superiority  toward  the 
Negro  race  —  Housing  of  Delta  Negroes  —  Share  and 
renting  systems  —  The  crop  lien  —  .Effect  of  Negro 
characteristics  on  their  economic  status  —  Moral  delin 
quencies  of  the  Negro  —  A  renting  experiment. 

IV.  A  PLANTATION  EXPERIMENT        .          .          .     125 

Demand  for  Negro  labour  in  the  Delta  —  Desirability  of 
an  assured  tenantry  —  Statistics  of  a  five-year  renting 
experiment  on  Dunleith  plantation  —  Removals  and 
their  effect  on  the  plantation  —  Condition  of  the 
moving  families  —  Comparison  of  the  renting  and 
share  systems  —  Advancement  of  money  —  Causes  of 
removals  of  renters  —  Lack  of  home  affection  in  the 
Negro  —  His  urban  drift  —  Table  of  Dunleith 
Plantation  statistics 


Contents  xix 

V.  THE  ECONOMIC  FUTURE  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
NEGRO  —  THE  FACTOR  OF  WHITE  COMPE 
TITION  ......  149 

The  wealth  of  the  Negro  race,  1860  and  1905  —  Decline 
of  the  Negro  in  former  labour  monopolies  in  the  North 
—  The  influx  of  foreign  white  labour  and  displacement 
of  the  Northern  Negro  —  Economic  prejudice  against 
the  Negro  in  the  North  —  Contributing  causes  to  be 
found  in  Negro  character  —  The  Negro's  economic  situ 
ation  in  the  South  —  The  influence  of  the  drawing  of 
the  race  line  —  Demand  for  better  service  than  the 
Negro's  —  Influence  of  Trade  Unions  —  Effect  of 
these  limitations  on  field  of  Negro's  employment  — 
The  Italian  compared  with  the  Negro  in  Southern 
agriculture  —  Necessity  of  white  supervision  of  work 
of  Negro  —  The  Sunny  Side  Italian  experiment  — 
Relative  efficiency  of  Italian  and  Negro  —  Negro 
improvidence  and  extravagance  and  Italian  thrift  — 
Italian  and  Negro  in  the  garden  patch  —  The  Negro 
and  the  economic  door  of  hope  —  Basis  of  true  racial 
greatness. 


PART  THREE 

CRUCIAL   POINTS    OF    POST   BELLUM    RACIAL 
CONTACT 

VI.    RACE  FRICTION          .         .         .         .         .211 

Definition  of  race  friction  —  Colour  division  among 
races  —  The  law  of  contact  and  race  friction  —  Slavery 
and  its  relation  to  present  racial  difficulties  —  The  dif 
ference  in  the  attitude  of  the  North  and  South  toward 
the  Negro  —  The  Anglo-Saxon  attitude  of  superiority 
toward  the  Negro  —  The  adaptability  of  the  Negro 
masses  to  conditions  of  inferiority  —  The  problem  of 
the  higher  classes  —  Race  consciousness  and  race 
friction. 


xx        The  American  Race  Problem 

VII.     MR.    ROOSEVELT,   THE    SOUTH,    AND   THE 

NEGRO  ......     242 

The  facts  in  the  case  —  The  Booker  Washington  din 
ner  —  The  Crum  appointment  —  The  Indianola  post- 
office  —  The  Reconstruction  background  —  Relations 
between  masters  and  slaves  —  Negro  testimony  to  its 
kindliness  —  The  Negro  and  the  carpet  bagger  and  the 
sundering  of  kindly  relations  —  The  association  of 
ideas  and  present  relations  between  white  and  black — 
Northern  misunderstanding  of  the  South  —  McKinley, 
Roosevelt,  and  the  Negro  —  The  South  and  Negro 
suffrage  —  Official  recognition  of  the  race  —  McKin 
ley 's  "Negro  policy"  —  Roosevelt  and  the  "door  of 
hope"  —  Different  classes  of  Negroes  and  their  influ 
ence  on  the  masses  —  McKinley  and  the  South  and 
the  era  of  good  feeling  —  A  concrete  racial  attitude  — 
Mulattoes  in  office  not  a  recognition  of  the  "black 
man  "  —  The  rights  of  the  Negro  must  come  as  a  grant 
rather  than  by  coercion  —  Negro  view  of  Roosevelt  — 
Social  equality  —  The  Booker  Washington  dinner 
and  Southern  sentiment  —  What  social  equality  means 
to  the  Negro  —  A  phenomenon  of  race  consciousness 
—  The  Ethiopian  movement  —  Racial  conditions  in 
Jamaica  —  The  Southern  Referee  —  Traitors  and 
loyalists  —  The  Referee  and  the  scalawag  —  Social 
equality  problems  in  South  Africa  —  Sectionalism 
and  the  race  problem  —  The  universality  of  problems 
of  racial  contact. 


VIII.    THE  NEGRO  IN  POLITICS         .          .          .     351 

The  Fifteenth  Amendment  —  Negro  suffrage  and  party 
affiliation  —  Southern  constitutions  and  Negro  dis- 
franchisement  —  Their  requirements  directed  against 
Negro  characteristics  rather  than  the  Negro  personally 

—  Decline  of  the  Negro  leader  and  ensuing  political 
lethargy  in  the  race  —  Interest  of  white  men  centred 
in  the  primary  —  Resultant  reduction  in  vote,  basis  of 
demand   for   reduction  in  Southern  representation  — 

—  The  venality  of  the  Negro  vote  —  Danger  from  the 


Contents  xxi 

THE  NEGRO  IN  POLITICS  (Continued) 

Negro  in  politics  the  explanation  of  the  "Solid  South" 
— Negro  solidarity  against  Southern  white  people  — 
Suffrage  qualifications  —  Capacity  for  self-government 

—  Negro  respect  for  "strong"  government  —  Political 
status  of  the  Negro  in  the  West  Indies  —  Suffrage  a 
states'    right  —  The    Maoris    in   New   Zealand  —  The 
Mississippi    constitution  of    1890  —  The    race  war  in 
North  Carolina  —  The  Black  peril  in  South  Africa  — 
The    Boers   and   native  suffrage  —  The  indispensable 
requirements  for   self-government  —  The   problem   in 
Cuba  —  In  Haiti  —  The  Mulatto's  relation  to  the  Negro 
race  —  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon  mulattoes  —  Inter-racial 
colour    line  —  The    Negro    as    a    "peasant"    class  — 
Suffrage  and  expediency  —  Government  without  con 
sent  of  the  governed  —  Characteristics  and  attainments 
of  the  Negro  in  politics. 

PART  FOUR 
AN  UNCONSIDERED  ELEMENT 

IX.  THE  MULATTO  FACTOR  IN  THE  RACE  PROBLEM    425 

Ethnic  differences  between  the  Negro  and  white  races 

—  Achievements  of  the  mulatto  credited  to  the  Negro 
race  —  Antiquity  of  the  Negro  race  and  its  barren 
history  —  Famous    mulattoes  —  Northern     solicitude 
for  contented  masses  of  the  Negro  race  —  Pernicious 
influence  of  mulattoes  on  the  Negro  masses  —  The 
mulatto  an  anomaly  in  American  life. 

PART    FIVE 
PAPERS  BY  WALTER  F.  WILLCOX 

I.    NEGRO  CRIMINALITY      .          .          .          .  443 

Proportion  of  Negro  to  white  prisoners  —  Conditions 
North  and  South — Negroes  on  increase  of  crime  in 
their  race  —  Reasons  for  this  growth  —  Lack  of  family 


xxii     The  American  Race  Problem 

NEGRO  CRIMINALITY  (Continued) 

life  —  Increasing  competition  with  white  labour  in 
cotton,  tobacco,  sugar  and  rice  crops — Industrial 
decline  of  the  Negro  —  Production  of  social  classes  in 
the  Negro  race  —  Race  friction  as  a  cause  of  increase 
in  crime  —  Development  of  race  opinion  —  Lynching. 

II.  CENSUS  STATISTICS  OF  THE  NEGRO        .          .     476 

The  United  States  and  its  study  of  the  Negro  race  — 
The  Census  classification  of  races  —  The  mulatto  in  the 
Census  —  The  Negro  population  of  the  United  States 
and  her  insular  possessions  —  City  and  country  popu 
lation —  The  figures  of  the  Census  of  1870  —  Sex  in 
Negro  population  statistics  —  Illiteracy  —  Marital  con 
dition  —  Occupations  —  Death-rate  —  Status  of  the 
Negro  in  the  professions  and  skilled  occupations. 

III.  THE   PROBABLE   INCREASE   OF   THE   NEGRO 

RACE  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.          .          .     496 

Question  of  relative  growth  of  the  races  —  Individual 
estimates  of  the  Negro's  probable  increase  —  Tables  of 
increase  for  the  nineteenth  century  —  Decline  in  the 
Negro  rate  of  increase  —  Birth-rate  of  Southern  Negroes 
—  Tables  of  child  population  —  Immigration  as 
affecting  white  birth-rate  in  South  —  Various  influ 
ences  tending  to  decrease  in  birth-rate  —  Tables  of 
comparative  death-rates  —  Proportional  increase  in 
certain  occupations  —  The  Negro  in  agriculture  and 
influence  of  machinery  —  Cotton  boll  weevil  and  its 
effect  on  the  Negro  in  agriculture  —  The  Negro  race 
losing  ground. 

LIST  OF  OTHER  WRITINGS  OF  WALTER  F.  WILLCOX 

ON  THE  NEGRO             .....     530 
INDEX 535 


PART  ONE 
A    GENERAL    SURVEY 

I.     RACE  PROBLEM  CONTRASTS  AND   PARALLELS 
II.     THE  FOUNDATIONS  OP  OUR  DIFFERENCES 


STUDIES  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
RACE  PROBLEM 

i 

RACE  PROBLEM  CONTRASTS  AND  PARALLELS* 

THE  race  problem  is  a  difficult  subject  to  discuss — 
peculiarly  so  for  a  Southern  man  to  present  to 
a  Northern  audience.  There  are  very  common-sense 
reasons  for  this  fact,  flfese  are  to  be  found  partly 
in  the  inherent  qualities  of  the  problem  itself.  In  its 
essence  this  is  a  human  question.  In  it  are  blended 
all  the  elements  of  tragedy  and  comedy,  of  pathos  and 
humour,  of  happiness  and  sorrow,  of  hope  and  fear,  of 
love  and  hate  —  all  the  emotions  and  contradictions 
and  contrasts  that  enter  into  the  great  problem  of 
human  life.  Yet  with  all  its  human  breadth,  its  very 
geography  colours  it  with  a  sectional  tone.  It  is  very 
close  to  one  part  of  the  country  and  very  far  removed 
from  the  other.  And  here  we  have  one  of  the  diffi 
culties  in  the  way  of  the  man  with  whose  daily  life  it 
is  bound  up  from  infancy  to  the  grave,  when  he  would 
talk  of  it  to  those  for  whom  it  exists  only  as  a  "national 
question"  —  a  subject  merely  of  academic  interest. 

*This  and  the  paper  following  are  a  consolidation  of  three  lectures  —  one 
given  at  Cornell  University,  in  1905,  and  two  at  the  University  of  Michigan, 
in  1906. 

3 


4         The  American  Race  Problem 

Then,  too,  it  is  so  old,  and  has  so  long  been  threshed 
over,  and  beaten  back  and  forth  as  a  sort  of  shuttle 
cock  of  debate,  that  the  world  seems  quite  satisfied 
that  it  knows  all  about  it,  or  at  least  enough  to  have 
made  up  its  mind.  A  result  of  this  prolonged  and 
acrimonious  discussion  is  that  the  whole  question  seems 
to  be  inextricably  confused  with  partisan  and  sectional 
issues.  It  has  become  difficult  to  so  present  the  subject 
to  one's  hearers  as  to  convince  them  that  the  speaker 
is  treating  it  solely  upon  its  merits.  Extremes  of 
opinion  and  statement  are  constantly  answered  in  kind 
and  the  waters  of  a  naturally  unquiet  stream  are  seldom 
allowed  to  run  clear  and  undisturbed. 

I  am  not  an  extremist,  and  I  long  ago  made  up  my 
mind  to  keep  faith  with  myself  in  this,  that  I  would  not 
utter  one  word  upon  this  perplexing  question  of  which 
my  conscience  did  not  approve  as  the  prompting  of  a 
desire  to  speak  the  truth  for  the  truth's  sake.  My 
memory  does  not  go  back  to  a  time  when  I  was  not 
interested  in  the  subject.  "  One  of  the  earliest  questions 
that  puzzled  my  childhood's  mind  was  why  my  planta 
tion  playmates  were  black  and  I  white,  why  between  us 
here  and  there  the  lines  were  drawn,  and  here  and  there 
they  disappeared.  From  that  day  to  this  I  have  been 
asking  questions  of  myself  and  of  the  world,  and  seeking 
for  answers  with  varying  degrees  of  success.  One  of 
these  questions,  the  one  which  overshadowed  all  the 
rest,  was  why  our  people,  the  people  of  one  common 
country,  should  think  and  feel  and  act  so  differently 
wherever  this  black  figure  loomed  upon  the  horizon. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  5 

It  is  the  answer  to  this  question,  as  I  have  found  it  for 
myself,  that  I  have  come  to  offer  you.  I  shall  be  happy 
if  I  can  make  it  one  half  as  clear  to  your  minds  as  fifteen 
years  of  study  have  made  it  to  mine.  Please  do  not 
misunderstand  me.  I  am  not  a  missionary,  seeking 
converts.  I  do  not  wish  to  impose  my  views  upon 
yours,  nor  is  it  my  purpose  to  endeavour  to  make  you 
think  as  I  think.  It  is  not  necessary  to  a  thorough 
understanding  between  us  that  either  shall  surrender 
his  opinions  to  the  other.  The  object  I  seek  is  quite 
different.  It  is  to  attempt  an  explanation  of  why  we 
do  not  think  alike;  to  render  more  intelligible  to  you, 
perhaps,  the  attitude  of  my  people,  which  will  carry 
within  itself  the  reasons  for  the  differences  between  our 
respective  points  of  view. 

This  may  not  appear  to  be  a  very  formidable  under 
taking,  but  did  you  ever  try  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  within  you,  on  this  subject?  Do  you  know 
why  in  one  section  of  your  country  the  two  races  are 
separated  in  schools  and  cars,  and  are  not  allowed  to 
intermarry,  while  in  the  other  such  laws  do  not  exist? 
Honestly  and  satisfactorily  to  answer  such  questions  for 
one's  self  is  by  no  means  a  simple  mental  feat.  For  a 
Southern  man  to  do  so  for  others  is  a  hundred  times  more 
difficult.  Any  man  who  is  so  situated  that  in  order  to 
present  the  truth  of  a  given  question  he  is  compelled 
also  to  present  facts  that  are  disagreeable,  or  unpopular 
or  opposed  to  commonly  entertained  conceptions, 
labours  under  a  twofold  disadvantage.  He  is  very 
likely  to  have  his  motives  impugned  and  his  honesty 


6        The  American  Race  Problem 

questioned.  Under  such  conditions  candour  is  subject 
to  the  discount  of  being  mistaken  for  prejudice,  and  a 
premium  is  thereby  placed  upon  hypocrisy  and  evasion. 

Now  this  is  just  what  the  Southern  white  man  has  to 
confront  in  discussing  the  race  question.  But  I  shall 
proceed  on  the  assumption  that  you  at  least  have  faith 
in  my  honesty.  Also,  I  am  taking  it  for  granted  that 
you  do  not  entirely  agree  with  a  certain  distinguished 
magazine  editor  who  last  year  wrote  me  on  this  subject. 
He  told  me,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  man  who  was 
raised  among  Negroes  in  the  South,  and  employed 
them,  really  knew  nothing  whatever  about  them,  as 
compared  with  the  man  in  the  North  who  "sympathised 
with  their  longings  and  hopes  and  aspirations." 

Here  is  the  key  to  my  philosophy  of  race  relations: 
it  is  the  influence  of  local  environment  and  local  con 
siderations  in  determining  local  attitude.  This  is  my 
explanation  of  the  differences  of  opinion  among  people 
of  different  sections  of  this  country,  but  of  equal  moral 
and  intellectual  integrity,  upon  our  so-called  race 
problem.  After  a  decade  and  a  half  of  study,  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  laying  down  the  fundamental  proposition 
that  the  attitude  of  the  so-called  Anglo-Saxon  people 
toward  the  Negro  the  world  over  is  essentially  the 
same  under  similar  conditions.  I  am  willing  to  go  one 
step  farther,  and  express  the  conviction  that  this  truth 
is  so  well  grounded  in  fact  and  reason  and  experience 
that  eventually  it  will  be  sufficiently  recognised  to 
afford  a  basis  for  mutual  toleration  and  respect  among 
all  white  people,  as  regards  their  social  and  political 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  7 

relations  with  the  Negro,  and  the  other  inferior  or  back 
ward  races  with  which  they  are  brought  into  contact. 
An  important  contributing  factor  to  this  consummation 
will  be  the  attitude  of  such  races  themselves,  as  it 
becomes  better  understood  by  white  people.  They 
will  be  first  to  recognise  this  common  attitude  of  the 
white  man.  Understand  me,  I  am  not  talking  about 
the  exceptional  individual,  the  closet  philosopher  or  the 
doctrinaire.  I  speak  of  the  average  man. 

It  is  along  this  line  that  Mr.  Henry  Charles  Lea  takes 
issue  with  the  dictum  of  the  late  Lord  Acton  as  to  a 
fixed  standard  of  moral  conduct.  I  agree  with  Mr.  Lea 
that  our  "standards  of  right  and  wrong  are  modified 
and  adapted  to  what  at  the  moment  are  regarded  as  the 
objects  most  beneficial  to  the  individual  or  to  the  social 
organisation."*  And  this  local  adaptation  of  standards 
—  this  variable  conception  of  wisdom,  justice,  expedi 
ency,  enlightened  selfishness,  right  or  wrong,  call  it 
what  you  please  —  finds  universal  application.  It  is 
not  confined  to  given  races  or  periods,  or  to  our  attitude 
toward  any  certain  set  of  conditions. 

We  see  this  illustrated  in  the  practically  unanimous 
adoption  of  a  Japanese  exclusion  resolution  by  the 
California  legislature  when  the  rest  of  the  country 
was  wild  with  enthusiasm  over  the  newly  risen  Far 
Eastern  world  power;  we  see  it  in  a  clause  in  the 
warrant  for  the  1905  "town  meeting"  of  Marion,  Mass., 
providing  for  a  vote  on  the  question  of  employing  only 
white  men  on  town  work;  we  see  it  in  the  erection  of 

*  Report  of  the  American  Historical  Association,  1903,  Vol.  i,  pp.55  ft  seq. 


8         The  American  Race  Problem 

the  state  of  West  Virginia  during  the  Civil  War,  and  in 
the  admission  of  Nevada  to  the  Union;  we  see  it  in  the 
action  of  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  matter  of  emancipation, 
within  two  years  after  his  declaration  that  he  not  only 
had  no  intention  of  interfering  with  the  institution  of 
slavery,  but  had  no  right  or  power  to  interfere  with  it; 
we  see  it  in  the  exclusion  of  Chinese  labourers,  and  also 
I  may  add,  in  the  recent  light  which  suddenly  burst 
upon  us  as  regards  the  manner  of  enforcing  this  exclusion 
law,  after  a  Chinese  boycott  had  opened  our  eyes;  we 
see  it  in  the  ease  and  promptness  with  which  we  found 
warrant  for  recognising  the  independence  of  the  so- 
called  "republic"  of  Panama,  under  the  stimulating  neces 
sity  of  a  place  to  dig  a  canal;  we  see  it  in  the  Platt 
amendment  which  we  compelled  the  Government  of 
Cuba  to  incorporate  in  her  constitution,  as  a  condition 
precedent  to  her  "independence";  we  see  it  in  the 
enunciation  and  maintenance  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  — 
the  quintessence  of  selfishness,  from  the  world's  point  of 
view,  a  law  of  self-preservation  from  our  own;  we  see 
it  in  the  equanimity  with  which  we  acquiesced  and 
assisted  in  the  extinguishing  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
ancient  empire  of  Korea,  at  the  respectful  request  of 
our  great  and  good  friend,  the  Mikado  of  Japan;  we 
see  it  in  the  passage  by  the  legislature  of  the  state 
of  Kansas,  the  home  of  John  Brown,  of  a  law  providing 
separate  schools  for  the  two  races  in  Kansas  City,  and 
in  the  governor's  approval  of  the  bill,  in  the  face  of 
Negro  opposition,  under  the  necessity  of  what  he  de 
scribed  as  "local  conditions  that  are  peculiar."  Such 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  9 

instances  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  and  without 
any  reference  whatever  to  the  Negro,  if  we  cared  to 
exclude  his  case.  We  need  not  call  this  an  accommoda 
tion  of  conscience  to  necessity ;  it  is  simply  a  practical 
realisation  of  the  difference  between  theory  and  practice. 
It  is  just  what  Mr.  Lea  declares  it  to  be,  a  modification 
and  adaption  of  our  standards  of  right  and  wrong  to 
what  at  the  moment  are  regarded  as  the  objects  most 
beneficial  to  the  individual  or  to  the  social  organisation. 
No  field  offers  a  broader  opportunity  for  the  study  of 
the  operation  of  this  fixed  and  inexorable  law  of  human 
conduct  than  that  afforded  by  the  contrasts  and  parallels 
arising  out  of  the  contact  between  the  white  and  Negro 
races.  It  is  a  field  which  covers  the  entire  group  of 
West  Indian  Islands,  a  considerable  portion  of  South 
America,  large  areas  in  East,  West,  and  South  Africa, 
and  every  state  in  the  American  Union  wherein  slaves 
were  at  one  time  held  or  where  any  considerable  number 
of  Negroes  now  reside.  Although  I  have  attempted  to 
study  race  relations  throughout  this  field,  as  regards 
conditions  both  historical  and  still  persisting,  I  can  do  no 
more  here  than  merely  suggest  for  your  consideration 
certain  salient  facts  as  I  have  found  them.  And  in 
doing  this  permit  me  to  again  emphasise  the  object  I 
I  have  in  view.  Do  not  understand  me  as  offering  you 
a  mere  tu  quoque  argument.  I  would  not  travel  this 
far  to  engage  in  so  puerile  a  performance.  What  I  shall 
say  is  not  even  offered  as  a  defence  of  the  Southern 
racial  attitude.  I  do  not  think  the  latter  needs  any 
defence.  All  it  needs  is  to  be  understood.  My  purpose 


io       The  American  Race  Problem 

is  broader,  and  grounded  upon  more  substantial  founda 
tions.  I  offer  you  this  testimony  to  human  nature 
itself  —  to  exemplify  the  operation  of  traits  as  old  as 
man  and  as  broad  as  the  world.  I  would  only  show 
you  a  very  old  and  very  fundamental  truth,  that  it  is 
unsafe  for  us  to  say,  in  the  fancied  security  of  untried 
isolation,  just  what  we  would  or  would  not  do  if  in 
another's  place.  We  do  not  know  when  we  ourselves 
may  be  put  to  the  test,  and  we  may  lay  it  down  as  a 
postulate  of  human  nature  that  we  should  act  just  about 
as  the  rest  of  mankind  has  acted,  wherever  confronted 
with  conditions  instead  of  theories. 

In  all  the  American  colonies,  in  those  of  England, 
France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  and  Denmark,  in  the 
West  Indies  and  Latin  America,  and  in  Cape  Colony 
in  South  Africa,  there  may  be  found  the  same  under 
lying  purpose  in  the  statutes  and  ordinances  for  the 
regulation  of  slaves.  This  was  the  ordering  and  control 
of  their  domestic  and  economic  life.  Such  laws  differed 
only  with  differences  of  local  conditions,  and  were 
modified  because  of  numbers  or  economic  considerations. 
The  same  is  true  with  regard  to  the  restrictive  legislation 
which  accompanied  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout 
all  the  foreign  colonies  I  have  mentioned,  and  in  all 
the  American  states  —  New  England,  Eastern,  and 
Southern.  I  cannot  discuss  these  statutes  in  detail, 
but  their  general  form  was  compulsory  apprentice 
ship  and  laws  against  vagrancy,  with  gradual  emancipa 
tion  in  Brazil,  Cuba,  and  Porto  Rico.  Their  uniform 
purpose  was  to  guard  against  the  effects  of  sudden  and 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  n 

revolutionary  social  and  economic  changes.  As  ex 
pressed  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  favouring  gradual,  over 
sudden  emancipation,  it  was  to  spare  both  races  "the 
evils  of  sudden  derangement,"  and  to  save  the  Negroes 
"from  the  vagrant  destitution  which  must  largely 
attend  immediate  emancipation,"  especially  where 
there  was  a  considerable  Negro  population.* 

Notwithstanding  the  universality  of  such  legislation, 
which  you  will  find  if  you  will  pursue  the  study  broadly 
enough,  the  reception  accorded  such  action  by  the 
Southern  States  in  1865  reveals  a  not  uncommon  human 
failing,  particularly  apparent  in  race  problem  discus 
sions.  This  is  the  claiming  of  higher  motives  for  our 
own  conduct  than  we  are  willing  to  accord  to  others  for 
similar  action,  under  even  more  trying  circumstances, 
or  the  convenient  ignoring  of  our  own  conduct  entirely. 
This  is  worthy  of  your  attention  in  a  study  of  present 
conditions,  for  I  think  there  can  be  no  question  that 
the  continued  and  sweeping  denunciation  of  these  laws, 
as  defiant  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  people  to 
perpetuate  slavery,  gave  to  Northern  discussion  and 
sentiment  at  a  critical  moment  a  decided  and  positive 
trend.  It  is  entirely  conservative  to  say  that  the 
effect  has  been,  even  to  this  day,  to  colour,  even  though 
perhaps  unconsciously,  the  opinion  entertained  by  one 
section  of  the  country  of  the  motives,  feeling,  and  conduct 
of  the  people  of  the  other,  in  all  matters  wherein  the 
Negro  is  concerned.  It  is  with  peculiar  pleasure  that 
I  offer  you  the  testimony  of  the  conclusion  of  a  most 

*  "Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,"  Vol.  6,  pp.  68,  92,  137. 


12       The  American  Race  Problem 

careful  and  painstaking  New  England  historian,  on 
the  declaration  of  Southern  men  in  1866  that  the  South 
did  not  want  to  reestablish  slavery.  I  quote  you  the 
judgment  of  Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes:  "After  thirty- 
six  years  of  observation,  study,  and  reflection,  I  am 
convinced  of  the  absolute  truth  of  this  statment."  Mr. 
Rhodes  says  further  that  Mr.  Elaine's  account  of  these 
laws  "is  inaccurate  and  unfair  to  the  South."* 

It  seems  to  me  peculiarly  appropriate  that  here, 
before  the  students  of  a  great  American  university,  a 
body  of  men  and  women  who  in  the  natural  order  of 
things  are  likely  to  play  an  important  part  in  moulding 
future  public  opinion  in  various  sections  of  our  country, 
I  should  record  one  of  the  strongest  convictions  I 
hold  upon  this  much-vexed  problem.  It  is  this:  With 
out  mutual  respect,  and  confidence  in  one  another's 
honesty  of  thought  and  purpose,  we  may  continue  to 
abuse  and  misunderstand  each  other  to  the  end  of  time. 
Such  respect  can  be  developed  only  upon  a  foundation 
of  tolerance,  appreciation,  and  understanding  of  our 
respective  points  of  view.  If  ever  such  foundation 
shall  be  laid  amongst  us,  the  work  must  primarily  be 
that  of  the  really  unbiased  historian,  economist,  and 
sociologist.  I  know  of  no  graver  responsibility  which  a 
teacher  can  assume  than  that  which  devolves  upon  him 
when  he  essays  to  lecture  on  any  phase  of  this  general 
question,  for  he  should  know  not  only  his  subject,  but 
himself  as  well.  To  the  first  of  these  is  given  the  privi 
lege  of  freeing  the  present  from  the  evil  effects  of  mis- 


1  "History  of  the  United  States,"  Vol.  5,  pp.  615,  556,  and  notes  i  and  a 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  13 

apprehensions  as  to  the  past;  while  to  the  latter  we 
have  a  right  to  look  for  discussion  farthest  removed 
from  passion  and  prejudice.  Upon  these  groups  rests 
the  duty  of  lifting  such  discussion  out  of  the  quagmire 
of  theorising,  intolerance,  and  hysteria,  and  putting  it 
upon  a  plane  of  reason  and  common  sense.  The  situa 
tion  demands  the  candid  treatment  and  interpretation 
of  facts,  not  the  farther  propagation  of  ancient  dogmas 
because  they  are  ancient,  nor  the  projecting  of  new 
speculations  because  they  are  new. 

Through  the  whole  range  of  relations  between  the 
white  man  and  the  black,  from  the  slavery  of  one  by  the 
other  to  theoretical  political  equality  between  the  two, 
we  find  the  attitude  of  the  stronger  toward  the  weaker 
dictated  and  controlled  by  considerations  of  local  public 
policy,  call  these  by  what  name  we  will.  The  laws  and 
customs  of  every  state  in  the  Union,  from  the  beginning 
until  this  good  hour,  have  been  influenced  by  the  factor 
of  the  relative  numerical  strength  of  the  Negro.  There 
is  not  a  state  in  the  Union,  from  Massachusetts  to 
California,  which,  through  some  element  of  its  popula 
tion,  does  not  to-day,  somewhere  within  its  borders,  in 
some  way  discriminate  against  the  Negro  race.  We  are 
fundamentally  alike  in  our  attitude  toward  the  Negro, 
however  much  we  may  deny  it  on  each  side  of  the  line. 
And  this  truth  will  more  and  more  be  realised  as  our 
Negro  population  becomes  more  generally  distributed, 
and  as  political  and  economic  conditions  gradually 
tend  toward  greater  uniformity  between  the  various 
sections  of  the  country.  In  the  North  he  is  permitted 


14       The  American  Race  Problem 

to  attend  schools  and  ride  in  cars  with  white  people,  and 
is  not  segregated  in  theatres,  because  as  yet  he  is  not 
numerically  strong  enough  to  be  personally  offensive  to 
the  white  population,  or  to  justify  the  expense  and 
annoyance  which  such  general  separation  entails  upon 
the  white  man  himself.  But,  generally  speaking,  he  is 
permitted  to  work  only  in  menial  pursuits.  He  is 
permitted  to  work  in  the  South,  nay,  he  is  besought 
and  begged  to  work,  at  any  occupation  under  the  sun, 
because  he  is  still  the  labourer  to  which  we  are  most 
accustomed,  and  as  yet  the  white  man  does  not  want 
his  job.  But  he  is  required  to  attend  separate  schools 
and  to  ride  in  separate  cars. 

Suppose  we  glance  at  some  expert  Negro  testimony 
on  this  general  proposition  as  to  race  problem  parallels 
and  contrasts.  No  less  an  authority  than  Dr.  DuBois, 
in  his  history  of  the  "Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade," 
in  speaking  of  New  England,  says:  "The  system  of 
slavery  had,  on  this  soil,  and  amid  these  surroundings, 
no  economic  justification,  and  the  small  number  of 
Negroes  here  furnished  no  political  arguments  against 
them."  As  to  the  slave  trade,  however,  he  says  moral 
opposition  "was  swept  away  by  the  immense  economic 
advantage  of  the  traffic  to  a  thrifty,  seafaring  commun 
ity  of  traders."  Again  he  assures  you  that  "experience 
proved  that  an  appeal  toward  rectitude  was  unheard  in 
Carolina  when  rice  had  become  a  great  crop,  and  in 
Massachusetts  when  the  rum-slave  traffic  was  paying 
a  profit  of  100  per  cent."*  This  line  of  discussion 

*  "Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade,  "  pp.  31,  37,  195. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  15 

might  be  indefinitely  amplified.  I  could  exhaust  your 
patience  by  a  mere  recital  of  parallels  between  the 
action  of  the  New  England,  Eastern,  and  Southern 
colonies  and  states  in  matters  touching  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery.  But  it  would  all  resolve  itself  into 
the  suggestion  conveyed  by  the  quotation  from  Dr. 
DuBois  —  the  ordering  and  control  by  each  separate 
community  of  its  individual  domestic  economy  according 
to  its  own  ideas  of  self-interest.  I  have  already  tried 
to  suggest  to  you  a  line  of  thought  in  connection  with 
the  general  restrictive  legislation  surrounding  the  various 
periods  of  emancipation.  Without  attempting  to  bridge 
the  space  interevning  between  1865  and  the  present 
time,  let  us  look  at  the  American  Negro  as  he  enters  the 
fifth  decade  of  his  life  as  a  free  man. 

We  have  heard  Dr.  DuBois  on  an  economic  parallel, 
suppose  we  hear  Mr.  Washington,  and  a  few  others  of 
the  race,  on  an  economic  contrast.  Farther  along  I 
want  to  say  a  few  words  of  suggestion  on  the  study  of 
this  problem,  but  let  me  digress  for  a  moment  right 
here.  There  is  one  point  of  marked  similarity  be 
tween  the  methods  of  practically  all  the  so-called 
students  of  the  race  question  with  whose  writings 
I  am  familiar.  Apparently,  none  of  them,  North 
or  South,  makes  more  than  a  mere  pretence  at  getting 
the  Negro's  point  of  view.  I  admit  that  it  is  a  diffi 
cult  thing  to  do,  but  in  my  opinion  no  man  has  the 
right  to  call  himself  a  student  of  the  question  who  does 
not  make  an  earnest  effort  toward  this  end.  I  have 
been  to  Negro  churches  on  plantations  in  my  own  section, 


1 6       The  American  Race  Problem 

and  witnessed  there  the  rude  and  boisterous  outbursts 
of  emotionalism  which  characterises  a  so-called  worship 
which  in  countless  instances  is  even  now  but  few  degrees 
removed  from  the  frenzy  of  a  native  African  religious 
orgy,  and  almost  akin  to  the  bamboula  of  Haiti  and 
Santo  Domingo.  I  have  also  listened  to  such  men  as 
Dr.  Francis  J.  Grimke,  of  Washington,  in  the  conduct  of 
services  in  a  Presbyterian  church  which  was  founded 
as  a  protest  against  emotionalism.  I  have  seen  the 
Negro  on  his  excursions,  at  the  "circus,"  and  in  political 
and  religious  gatherings  in  the  South,  and  at  various 
and  sundry  conventions  elsewhere.  I  have  talked 
with  Negroes  of  high  and  low  degree,  and  have  been  in 
the  humblest  cabins  of  the  race,  as  well  as  in  houses 
furnished  with  all  the  taste  and  refinement  of  modern 
civilisation.  I  have  seen  the  Negro  districts  of  New 
York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Washington,  and  Chicago, 
as  well  as  those  of  Southern  cities  and  towns.  I  have 
corresponded  with  more  than  four  hundred  Negroes  in 
various  walks  of  life,  and  have  discussed  their  most 
atrocious  crimes  with  hardened  convicts.  Always  I 
have  tried  to  gain  the  confidence  of  these  people,  and 
have  never  knowingly  abused  it.  I  have  read  the  books 
of  Negro  authors,  obscure  as  well  as  distinguished,  and 
for  a  number  of  years  have  kept  in  touch  with  their 
magazine  and  newspaper  literature.  In  all  this  my 
sole  purpose  has  been  to  try  to  learn  what  and  how  the 
Negro  thinks  and  feels.  I  do  not  presume  to  say  that 
I  have  succeeded  in  this,  but  I  do  say  that  the  man  who 
has  not  followed  such  methods  as  I  have,  has  more  to 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  17 

learn  about  the  subject  than  he  dreams  of.  Some 
such  course  of  study  is  essential  to  the  Southern  student 
of  the  problem,  if  he  would  really  know  something  of 
the  higher  classes,  as  he  already  knows  the  lower,  and 
if  he  wishes  to  estimate  at  their  approximate  value  the 
work  and  influence  and  lives  of  the  various  men  who 
are  to-day  moulding  conflicting  Negro  thought  in 
America  and  in  the  world.  It  is  essential  to  the  Northern 
man,  if  he  would  really  know  the  truth  of  his  own  section, 
as  the  Negro  sees  it,  and  some  of  the  aspects  of  the  life 
of  the  Negro  masses  as  well.  Above  all,  it  is  the  only 
way  in  which  either  the  Northern  or  Southern  student 
can  ever  hope  to  learn  what  the  American  Negro  thinks 
of  the  American  white  man. 

I  hope  you  will  pardon  this  digression,  and  also  its 
very  personal  tone.  A  narrative  of  my  own  method 
of  study  seemed  to  me  the  simplest  way  of  suggesting 
one  for  you.  It  occurred  to  me  to  make  this  suggestion 
to  you  as  I  was  on  the  point  of  quoting  from  Booker  T. 
Washington  on  the  relative  economic  opportunities 
offered  his  people  by  the  North  and  South.  I  have 
been  told  frequently  by  Northern  friends  that  there  was 
a  very  prevalent  belief  in  their  section  that  the  Negro 
was  not  given  a  fair  industrial  opportunity  in  the  South. 
I  have  seen  this  statement  in  print  many  times,  and 
last  year  an  eminent  New  England  historian  brought 
the  same  grave  charge  against  us.  Men  who  think  this 
way  should  read  what  the  Negro  himself  says  on  the 
subject.  The  evidence  is  voluminous,  and  also  con 
clusive,  it  seems  to  me,  and  much  of  it  is  readily  accessi- 


1 8       The  American  Race  Problem 

ble.  In  a  plea  for  industrial  education  and  opportunity, 
Mr.  Washington  says:  "No  one  can  fully  appreciate 
what  I  am  saying  who  has  not  walked  the  streets  of  a 
Northern  city  day  after  day  seeking  employment,  only 
to  find  every  door  closed  against  him  on  account  of  his 
colour,  except  in  menial  service."*  On  the  other  hand, 
he  says:  "Whatever  other  sins  the  South  may  be  called 
upon  to  bear,  when  it  comes  to  business,  pure  and  simple, 
it  is  in  the  South  that  the  Negro  is  given  a  man's  chance 
in  the  commercial  world,  "f  In  the  first  book  he  wrote, 
he  sought  to  show  the  pathetic  results  of  a  cruel  indus 
trial  discrimination,  and  he  went  North,  not  South,  for 
his  concrete  illustration.  Again,  he  tells  you:  "It  has 
been  my  privilege  to  study  the  condition  of  my  people  in 
nearly  every  part  of  America;  and  I  say,  without  hesita 
tion,  that  with  some  exceptional  cases,  the  Negro  is  at 
his  best  in  the  Southern  states.":):  He  declares  that  the 
absence  of  industrial  prejudice  in  the  South,  he  does  not 
say  real  or  alleged  absence  of  social  or  political  prejudice 
at  the  North,  furnishes  "the  entering  wedge  for  the  solu 
tion  of  the  race  problem."  "But  too  often,"  he  adds, 
"where  the  white  mechanic  or  factory  operative  from  the 
North  gets  a  hold,  the  trades  union  soon  follow,  and  the 
Negro  is  driven  to  the  wall."  He  also  tells  you  that 
"where  the  Negro  has  lost  ground  in  the  South,  it  has  not 
been  because  of  any  prejudice  against  him  as  a  skilled 
workman  on  the  part  of  the  native  Southern  white  man."  § 


*  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  76. 
t  "Up  From  Slavery,"  pp.  219-220. 
\  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  202. 
§"  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  pp.  78,  79. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  T9 

In  a  very  instructive  study  of  local  conditions,  Dr. 
William  N.  DeBerry,  pastor  of  a  coloured  Congregational 
church  in  Springfield,  Mass.,  declares  that  86  per  cent, 
of  the  coloured  labour  of  that  city  is  confined  to  servile 
employment  "by  pure  race  prejudice,"  which  "has 
closed  the  door  of  industrial  opportunity  against  them." 
He  says  that  all  they  ask  is  that  "as  a  class  they  may  be 
emancipated  from  the  merciless  industrial  ostracism 
which  shuts  out  the  capable  and  worthy  Negro  because 
God  chose  to  create  him  black."  And  Dr.  DeBerry 
says  that  his  study  should  be  "of  more  than  local  signi 
ficance,  inasmuch  as  the  situation  here  in  Springfield 
is  fairly  typical  of  the  black  man's  condition  throughout 
the  North."*  In  the  very  paper  in  which  Dr.  DeBerry's 
report  first  appeared,  I  read  an  account  of  a  Negro 
convention  in  my  state,  at  which  was  adopted  a  resolu 
tion  declaring  that  "nowhere  else  in  the  world  is  there 
such  an  opportunity  offered  to  us  as  is  offered  on  the 
plantations  of  the  South." 

In  this  connection  permit  me  to  quote  an  opinion  of 
Booker  T.  Washington,  by  the  spirit  of  which  our 
national  legislators  might  well  have  been  guided  in  years 
gone  by,  and  which  might  well  be  kept  in  mind  to-day. 
He  says  that  the  friendship  of  the  Southern  white  man 
affords  the  Negro  "a  protection  and  a  guarantee  of 
rights  that  will  be  more  potent  and  more  lasting  than 
any  our  Federal  Congress  or  any  outside  power  can 
confer,  "f  Contrast  this  with  Mr.  Elaine's  declaration 


*  Springfield  Weekly  Republican,  Feb.  10,  1905, 
t  "  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p,  216. 


20       The  American  Race  Problem 

that  the  Negro  must  not  be  left  "to  the  anger  and  hate 
of  the  class  from  whose  ownership  he  had  been  freed."* 
I  could  quote  you  a  great  deal  of  testimony  on 
this  matter  of  comparative  economic  opportunity 
between  the  South  and  the  rest  of  the  country.  I  would 
suggest,  however,  that  you  read  the  section  on  "Colour 
Prejudice,"  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Dr.  DuBois's 
"The  Philadelphia  Negro."  In  another  chapter  he 
says:  "It  is  a  paradox  of  the  times  that  young  men 
and  women  from  some  of  the  best  Negro  families  of 
the  city  .  .  .  have  actually  had  to  go  to  the  South 
to  get  work,  if  they  wished  to  be  aught  but  chamber 
maids  and  bootblacks."! 

Abraham  Lincoln  made  one,  and  only  one,  declaration 
of  a  belief  in  a  specific  form  of  "Negro  equality."  He 
made  it  in  these  words :  "In  the  right  to  eat  the  bread 
which  his  own  hand  earns,  without  the  leave  of  any 
body  else,  he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  Judge 
Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living  man."{  This 
right  was  guaranteed  the  Negro,  as  incident  to  his 
emancipation.  But  there  follows  also  another  right 
as  an  essential  corollary  to  this  —  a  right  without  which 
the  first  is  only  dead  sea  fruit  —  all,  indeed,  but  a 
mockery  and  a  farce.  This  is  the  right  to  earn  his 
bread,  as  well  as  the  right  to  eat  it.  We  have  heard 
much  in  these  latter  days  about  the  "door  of  hope," 
which  the  South  is  charged  with  attempting  to  close 
against  the  Negro.  A  number  of  years  of  reflection 

*  "Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  1886,  Vol.  2,  p.  106. 

t  "  The  Philadelphia  Negro,"  1899,  pp.  322-355,  and  pp.  395-396, 

%  "  Political  Debates,  Lincoln  and  Douglas,"  1895,  p.  114, 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  21 

have  brought  me  to  the  conclusion  that  for  the  Negro, 
at  this  stage  of  his  racial  growth,  there  is  but  one  door 
worth  the  opening,  and  it  is  not  political.  It  is  the 
door  of  which  Dr.  DeBerry  speaks,  the  door  of  industrial 
opportunity.  It  is  the  door  which  opens  to  the  touch 
of  honest  toil,  through  which  peace  and  comfort  beckon 
him  who  wants  to  found  a  home.  Within  its  portals 
contentment  may  be  found,  in  lieu  of  bitterness  and 
racial  strife  which  mark  the  path  to  false  ambition's 
more  pretentious  place.  Here  infancy  and  age  may  reap 
the  golden  fruit  of  labour,  and  character  may  grow 
without  the  hindering  hand  of  want.  Here  is  the  one 
great  primal  right  of  man,  the  right  to  labour  and  to 
live;  the  right  to  have  the  proper  wage  of  skill;  the 
right  to  toil  wherever  human  needs  make  work  for 
human  hands ;  the  right  to  sell  his  labour  where  he  will. 
Here  is  the  foundation  upon  which  the  family  may  be 
reared,  the  only  hope  of  any  race.  Here  is  the  "door 
of  hope,"  upon  whose  cruel  closing  follow  idleness  and 
crime,  vice  and  destitution,  vagrancy  and  death,  for 
the  masses  of  the  race,  not  mere  loss  of  empty  political 
preferment  for  the  chosen  few. 

To  the  crude  view  of  the  Southern  man  it  seems 
almost  a  mockery  to  say  to  the  Negro:  "You  may  vote, 
and  ride  in  our  cars,  and  sit  in  our  theatres,  and  attend 
our  schools,"  while  denying  him  free  access  to  industrial 
pursuits.  The  North  gave  practical  effect  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  conception  of  "equality"  when  it  said  to  the 
mason  who  had  been  trained  in  slavery:  "Henceforth 
every  dollar  you  earn  at  your  trade  is  your  own."  But 


22       The  American  Race  Problem 

it  should  be  somewhat  chary  of  laying  too  much  emphasis 
upon  this  incidental  achievement  of  a  "war  for  the 
Union,"  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  it  has  since  com 
pelled  the  former  slave  to  abandon  his  trowel  for  a  hod. 
Let  us  glance  at  another  aspect  of  race  relations  — 
the  social  —  the  torrid  zone  of  race  problem  discussion. 
If  we  go  below  the  superficial  manifestations,  we  find 
the  same  general  attitude,  North  and  South,  on  this 
social  phase  of  the  question.  The  North  draws  the 
social  colour  line  against  the  race  as  a  whole,  but  here 
and  there  a  Northern  man  permits  some  favoured 
individual  to  cross  it.  The  South  draws  the  line  against 
the  race  as  a  whole,  and  makes  no  exceptions  at  all. 
Save  for  such  individuals,  and  almost  invariably  they 
are  not  Negroes,  as  we  know  the  latter  in  the  South, 
what  may  be  termed  social  discrimination  exists  North 
as  well  as  South.  The  differences  are  more  apparent 
than  real  —  and  will  be  found  to  turn  mainly  upon 
different  sectional,  local,  and  individual  conceptions  of 
what  is  embraced  in  the  vague  yet  comprehensive  term, 
"social  equality."  Such  discrimination  is  emphasised 
more  in  the  South  simply  because  the  far  greater  number 
of  Negroes,  and  more  numerous  possible  points  of 
contact,  furnish  more  frequent  occasions  for  its  display. 
But  it  was  not  in  the  South  that  the  most  sensitive  and 
most  cultured  man  identified  with  the  Negro  race  first 
was  made  to  realise  that  he  "was  different  from  the 
others."  It  was  "  away  up  in  the  hills  of  New  England" 
(he  tells  those  of  us  who  study  the  life  of  the  race  in  its 
own  written  words)  "where  the  dark  Housatonic  winds 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  23 

between  Hoosac  and  Taghkanic  to  the  sea."  It  was 
there  he  first  was  made  to  feel  the  presence  of  "the 
shadow  of  the  veil."* 

In  a  contribution  to  a  leading  Negro  magazine  a 
Southern  Negro  has  related  his  experiences  in  a  Northern 
university.  He  says  he  found  "not  an  ounce  more  of 
opposition  "  from  Southern  than  from  Northern  students, 
but  describes  the  former  as  more  "  frank  "  and  the  latter 
more  "secretive"  in  their  racial  attitudes.  He  con 
cludes  his  article  by  saying:  "To-day  the  only  white 
members  of  Yale  class  of  1 904  with  whom  I  correspond, 
the  only  ones  who  expresed  a  desire  to  keep  in  touch 
with  me,  are  several  Southern  lads."f  A  contention 
that  the  Negro  is  treated  as  an  equal  in  the  North  is 
not  often  made  by  sensible  men,  and  it  cannot  be  sup 
ported  by  facts.  It  is  idle  to  point  to  a  mulatto  upon 
whom  Harvard  has  conferred  a  degree,  or  to  one  whom 
a  G.  A.  R.  post  has  elected  its  commander,  and  say  to 
the  world:  "Here  we  tolerate  no  racial  discrimina 
tions."  The  world  knows  better,  if  it  knows  anything 
at  all  about  the  subject.  And  the  Negro  knows  better, 
aye,  and  the  mulatto,  too,  whether  he  considers  the 
discrimination  in  either  its  social,  political,  or  economic 
aspect.  There  would  be  precious  little  room  for  mis 
understanding  between  us  here,  if  each  of  us  were  only 
more  thoroughly  acquainted  with  his  own  and  the 
other's  ground. 

And  our  white  brothers  in  South  Africa  are  in  exactly 


*  "The  Souls  of  Black  Folk."     DuBois,  p.  2. 

t  William  Pickens,  The  Voice  of  the  Negro,  April,  1905,  pp.  235,  236, 


24       The  American  Race  Problem 

the  same  boat  with  ourselves.  Technically  the  civil 
rights  of  whites  and  Negroes  are  the  same  in  Cape 
Colony,  but  the  actual  discriminations  are  just  as 
numerous  as  in  any  Southern  state.  I  have  a  statement 
from  an  English  resident  of  the  Cape,  who  spent  a 
winter  in  Georgia,  who  said  that  his  observations  had 
been  a  revelation  to  him,  after  the  stories  he  had  heard. 
He  says  the  Georgia  Negro  is  in  paradise  as  compared 
with  his  South  African  brother.  Two  years  ago  a  lot 
of  American  Negroes  in  Johannesburg  memorialised  our 
State  Department  for  a  redress  of  grievances,  because 
they  were  not  permitted  to  use  the  sidewalks.  Of 
course  Mr.  Hay  could  do  nothing.  It  was  a  local  police 
regulation,  and  the  authorities  made  no  distinction 
between  an  American  Negro  and  one  born  at  home. 
There  and  in  Natal  the  races  are  separated  on  railway 
trains,  and  even  Mr.  Labouchere,  champion  of  the 
Negro  that  he  is,  has  publicly  recognised  the  wisdom 
of  the  regulation.  There  are  many  Negroes  of  wealth 
and  education  in  South  Africa,  and  Mr.  James  Bryce 
relates  the  bitter  experience  of  one  of  these  in  trying  to 
get  his  daughter  into  a  white  school.  Possibly  another 
parallel  may  suggest  itself  to  you,  in  another  incident 
related  by  Bryce  in  his  description  of  social  conditions. 
When  Khama,  the  most  important  chief  south  of  the 
Zambesi,  a  man  of  large  influence  and  high  character, 
and  often  described  as  "a  Christian  gentleman,"  visited 
London  in  1895,  he  was  accorded  considerable  social 
attention,  and  the  Duke  of  Westminster  and  others 
invited  him  to  dine.  Mr.  Bryce  says  that  among 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  25 

Englishmen  throughout  South  Africa  the  social  recep 
tion  accorded  him  excited  "annoyance  and  disgust."* 
I  have  heard  men  from  California  express  themselves 
in  similar  terms  over  the  lionising  of  Mr.  Wu  Ting  Fang, 
when  he  was  a  social  favourite  in  the  East  a  few  years 
ago. 

The  Southern  people  have  lately  been  told  by  an 
eminent  American  scholar  that  they  cannot  hope  to 
solve  the  race  problem,  or  any  other  problem,  "until 
they  first  learn  the  real  barbarism  of  their  social  stan 
dards."  My  reply  to  this  generous  suggestion  would  be 
similar  to  Mr.  Elaine's  answer,  as  Secretary  of  State,  to 
the  then  Italian  Minister  on  a  certain  important  occasion, 
when  the  latter  found  fault  with  our  confusing  dual 
system  of  state  and  Federal  governments.  It  was  to 
the  effect  that  he  was  sorry,  but  really  did  not  believe 
we  would  make  any  immediate  change.  It  is  not  safe 
to  generalise  about  the  attitude  of  fifteen  or  twenty 
millions  of  people  on  any  subject.  But  I  feel  that  I 
can  say  that  the  white  people  of  the  South  believe  that 
where  two  races,  as  widely  different  as  are  the  white  and 
black,  live  together  in  large  masses,  public  policy  requires 
the  observance  of  certain  regulations  in  the  ordering  of 
the  social  relations  between  the  two.  Furthermore, 
they  are  entirely  satisfied  that  every  single  instance  of 
disregard  of  these  established  regulations  is  of  harmful 
tendency,  through  force  of  suggestion  and  example, 


*" Impressions  of  South  Africa,"  1899,  p.  354.  Mr.  Bryce's  chapter  on  "Blacks 
and  Whites,"  Chapter  21,  would  repay  reading  by  anyone  interested  in  the  larger 
aspects  of  the  question  of  race  relations,  which  I  am  here  merely  touching 
upon. 


26       The  American  Race  Problem 

and  this  without  the  least  reference  whatever  to  the 
social  station  of  the  parties  immediately  concerned,  or 
to  the  effect  upon  them  as  individuals.  It  matters  very 
little  how  we  may  designate  this — as  "race  prejudice," 
"social  barbarism,"  or  what  not.  There  it  is,  and  it  is 
grounded  upon  no  such  feeling  as  may  be  dismissed 
with  a  sneer.  It  is  based  upon  high  considerations  of 
the  general  welfare  of  the  state,  and  rises  to  the  dignity 
of  a  fixed  canon  of  social  and  public  law.  It  may  be 
disregarded  with  possible  safety  where  there  is  a  mere 
handful  of  either  race  in  contact  with  the  mass  of  the 
other;  possibly  it  may  be  overridden  with  impunity 
where  there  is  only  a  handful  of  each;  it  cannot  be 
safely  defied  where  the  millions  of  the  two  races  — 
embracing  all  degrees,  grades,  characters  and  conditions 
of  each  —  are  destined  permanently  to  occupy  the  same 
territory,  unless,  of  course,  we  are  prepared  to  accept 
the  ultimate  blending  of  the  two. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  follow  in  some  detail  the 
course  of  political  relations  between  the  races  after 
emancipation  in  the  more  important  governments  out 
side  the  United  States.  It  would  also  be  instructive, 
at  least  I  have  found  it  so,  as  throwing  valuable  light 
upon  this  aspect  of  our  own  problem.  We  should 
find  that  such  relations  reduce  themselves,  ultimately, 
to  one  of  four  conditions.  First:  The  Negro  has  been 
absorbed  politically  into  the  mass  of  the  population; 
and  where  this  has  taken  place  practical  social 
absorption  has  invariably  accompanied  or  followed  it. 
This  has  come  about  either  through  the  relative 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  27 

insignificance  of  numbers,  or  because  of  the  character 
of  the  white  population,  or  through  a  conjunction  of 
the  two.  Mexico,  the  Central  American,  and  some 
of  the  South  American  states  fall  into  this  class.  Or, 
second:  The  Negro  is  nominally  entitled  to  share 
equally  in  the  government,  as  part  of  the  electorate, 
as  in  Cape  Colony  and  the  British  West  Indies,  though 
his  ballot  is  hedged  about  with  qualifications,  and  self- 
government,  as  we  know  it,  does  not  really  exist.  Or, 
third:  He  is  frankly  recognised  as  possessed  of  no 
political  privileges  whatever,  as  in  Natal,  the  Boer 
states  before  the  war,  and  now  in  the  resulting  Boer 
colonies.  Or,  fourth:  He  has  secured  sole  control 
of  the  government,  through  force  of  numbers  and 
adventitious  circumstances,  as  in  Haiti  and  Santo 
Domingo.  Liberia  is  in  this  class  also,  but  of  course 
it  is  purely  an  artificial  creation.  We  should  also  find 
that  where  the  Negro  participates  to  any  extent  in  the 
administration  of  affairs,  as  occasionally,  here  and  there, 
in  the  British  West  Indies,  the  race  is  almost  invariably 
represented  solely  by  its  mulatto  type,  the  latter  recog 
nised  as  a  distinct  element  in  the  population.  The 
one  really  dominant  fact,  however,  is  that  in  all  these 
places,  regardless  of  relative  numbers  or  of  any  other 
consideration,  where  racial  amalgamation  has  not 
taken  place,  the  white  man  invariably  controls  the 
government  and  administers  its  affairs.  Always  except 
ing  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo,  of  course.  In  the  former 
the  Negro  governs  to  the  exclusion  of  the  mulatto  and 
such  whites  as  chance  to  live  there;  in  the  latter  the 


28       The  American  Race  Problem 

mulatto  governs  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Negro  and  the 
white  man.  I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  revise  the 
latter  statement  pretty  soon.  It  looks  very  much  as  if 
the  white  man  were  about  to  govern  there  also.  If  he 
ever  does,  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  Negroes 
of  Haiti  will  be  in  the  same  boat. 

I  shall  not  here  attempt  to  institute  a  comparison 
between  these  foreign  states  and  our  own.  I  merely 
submit  a  few  suggestions  for  your  consideration.  There 
are  factors  in  the  Southern  situation  not  found  else 
where  in  the  political  relations  between  the  races. 
Some  of  these  have  only  to  do  with  history,  others 
are  persistent.  For  instance,  nowhere  else  was  the 
change  of  relationship  from  that  of  master  and  slave 
to  one  of  civil  equality  accompanied  by  such  conditions 
as  ushered  it  in  at  the  South.  Nowhere  else  to-day  — 
on  either  the  American  or  African  continents  —  is 
there  being  made  an  attempt  to  carry  on  even  the 
semblance  of  complete  republican  government  with 
theoretical  political  equality  between  large  masses  of 
two  such  diverse  races.  I  once  listened  to  a  discus 
sion  of  the  suffrage  restrictions  of  the  Southern  states 
by  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  living  American  his 
torians.  I  was  impressed  by  the  seemingly  insuperable 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  even  a  man  of  honesty  and 
courage  and  brains,  when  from  a  position  of  unthreat- 
ened  and  impregnable  Caucasian  security  he  attempts 
to  understand  this  aspect  of  our  problem. 

It  is  not  possible  to  grasp,  through  the  lifeless  medium 
of  what  is  coldly  laid  down  in  the  books,  the  underlying 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  29 

motives  and  principles  actuating  and  determining  the 
political  conduct  of  the  Southern  white  man,  and  of 
every  other  Anglo-Saxon,  when  confronted  by  the 
Negro  in  even  approximately  equal  numbers.  This 
gentleman  correctly  recited  the  historic  truth  that  at 
the  beginning  of  our  government  the  free  Negro  was  not 
wholly  discriminated  against  in  the  matter  of  suffrage, 
but  was  allowed  to  vote  in  several  states,  Southern  as 
well  as  Northern.  Upon  this  naked  fact,  apparently, 
if  I  correctly  apprehend  the  reasoning,  it  is  sought  to 
build  the  argument  that  subsequent  suffrage  restric 
tions  have  been  unjust,  or  at  least  have  been  founded 
merely  upon  unjustifiable  race  prejudice — a  prejudice 
which  did  not  originally  exist.  The  trouble  here  is 
that  this  is  a  superficial  view.  The  significance  of 
original  conditions  and  subsequent  changes  is  entirely 
lost  sight  of.  There  was  no  discrimination  against  the 
Negro  at  first,  it  is  true,  but  neither  was  suffrage  speci 
fically  conferred  upon  him.  Negroes  were  enrolled  as 
soldiers  in  the  Continental  armies,  and  they  fought  in 
the  War  of  1812.  Yet  in  1861  public  sentiment  was 
such  that  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that 
the  Northern  Government  was  finally  prevailed  upon  to 
enlist  them  for  a  war  which  very  much  more  con 
cerned  them  than  had  either  of  the  other  two.  The 
Negro  was  simply  ignored  and  treated  as  a  negligible 
quantity  in  the  formation  of  our  general  scheme  of 
government.  Had  his  increase  of  numbers  never 
become  sufficient  to  attract  attention,  he  would  have 
continued  to  occupy  his  original  position,  and  it  is 


30       The  American  Race  Problem 

doubtful  if  he  would  ever  have  been  discriminated 
against  politically. 

The  constitution  of  Pennsylvania  furnishes  a  case  in 
point.  The  suffrage  article  in  the  constitution  of  1790 
gave  the  elective  franchise  to  male  "freemen"  with  no 
mention  whatever  of  colour.  It  was  said  a  number  of 
years  later,  however,  that  an  attempt  had  been  made  to 
confine  the  suffrage  specifically  to  whites.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  free  Negroes  did  occasionally  vote  in  the  state. 
But  when  the  convention  of  1837—38  framed  a  new 
constitution  the  matter  was  not  again  left  in  doubt,  and 
suffrage  was  confined  to  "white  freemen."  DuBois 
says  :  "As  the  Negro  population  increased,  how 
ever,  and  ignorant  and  dangerous  elements  entered, 
and  as  the  slavery  controversy  grew  warmer,  the  feeling 
against  Negroes  increased  and  with  it  opposition  to 
their  right  to  vote."*  But  I  do  not  think  it  is  correct 
to  describe  this  as  a  change  of  sentiment.  It  was  simply 
a  gradual  development  of  sentiment,  where  no  sentiment 
at  all  on  the  subject  can  properly  be  said  to  have  origi 
nally  existed.  It  is  worthy  of  mention,  however,  that 
there  was  no  change  of  sentiment  in  the  other  direction, 
and  the  Negro  was  not  given  the  suffrage  in  Pennsylvania 
until  the  XV  Amendment  was  adopted  in  1870. 

It  was  only  through  the  operation  of  this  amendment 
that  the  Negro  secured  the  elective  franchise  anywhere 
in  this  country,  with  the  qualified  exceptions  of  New 
York  and  five  of  the  New  England  States.  And  in  1860 
the  Negro  constituted  but  eight-tenths  of  one  per  cent. 

*  "The  Philadelphia  Negro,"  p.  370. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  31 

(0.8  per  cent.)  of  the  population  of  New  England,  the 
proportion  being  794  Negroes  to  100,000  white  people. 
In  New  York  and  three  of  the  New  England  states  there 
was  an  actual  decrease  in  the  number  of  Negroes  between 
1850  and  1860.  The  question  of  granting  the  suffrage 
to  Negroes  was  submitted  to  popular  vote  in  the  fall 
elections  of  1865  in  the  states  of  Connecticut,  Minne 
sota,  Wisconsin,  and  Colorado,  the  latter  just  entering 
the  Union.  It  was  defeated  in  each  one,  though  they 
were  all  in  the  practically  undisputed  control  of  the 
Republican  party.*  Three  years  later  we  can  still 
detect  no  outward  change  of  sentiment  on  the  part  of 
the  Northern  states.  The  Republican  National  Con 
vention  of  1868,  which  nominated  Grant,  inserted  this 
well  known  plank  in  its  platform:  "The  guarantee  by 
Congress  of  equal  suffrage  to  all  loyal  men  at  the  South 
was  demanded  by  every  consideration  of  public  safety, 
of  gratitude  and  of  justice  and  must  be  maintained; 
while  the  question  of  suffrage  in  all  the  loyal  states 
properly  belongs  to  the  people  of  those  states,  "f 

I  mention  these  facts  in  the  political  history  of  the 
Negro,  merely  to  show  you  that  with  few  exceptions 
his  political  status  in  the  Northern  states  was  just  what 
it  was  in  the  Southern,  just  as  long  as  the  control  of 
such  status  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  people  of  the 
states  themselves.  And  further,  that  even  after  Con 
gress  had  assumed  control  of  the  domestic  affairs  of  the 
Southern  states,  the  Northern  still  wished  to  reserve 


*  See  Elaine's  Comments,  "Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  1886,  Vol.  a,  p.  244. 


32       The  American  Race  Problem 

to  themselves  the  regulation  of  Negro  suffrage  within 
their  own  borders.  Whatever  the  fate  of  the  South, 
these  states  wanted  to  control  their  own  political 
destiny.  They  did  not  propose  to  experiment  with 
Negro  suffrage  upon  their  own  people. 

Through  all  this  may  be  seen  the  operation  of  the 
influences  which  I  regard  as  at  the  foundation  of  all 
race  relations  —  the  force  and  effect  of  numbers,  acting 
directly  or  indirectly  upon  public  opinion.  It  may  be 
asked  why  should  the  Western  states,  with  practically 
no  Negroes  at  all,  have  discriminated  against  them  in 
specific  terms.  The  question  is  not  a  difficult  one  to 
answer.  Had  those  states  emerged  from  colonies,  as  did 
the  Eastern  and  Southern,  their  constitutions  would 
have  been  controlled  by  the  same  influences  which 
shaped  the  creation  and  development  of  the  organic 
laws  of  the  older  states.  As  it  was,  they  were  settled 
by  Eastern  people,  and  their  constitutional  provisions 
on  the  Negro  merely  reflected  the  sentiment  which  had 
been  developed  in  the  states  from  which  such  settlers 
came.  Some  of  them  sought  the  simplest  way  out  of 
the  difficulty  by  either  frankly  prohibiting  free  Negroes 
or  mulattoes  from  living  within  their  borders,  or  requir 
ing  bond  for  such  residence.  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
and  Oregon  are  such  examples,  and  they  found  warrant 
for  their  action  in  analagous  provisions  in  some  of  the 
older  states.  On  the  other  hand,  some  did  not  care  to 
go  so  far  at  first,  or  did  not  think  it  necessary,  and 
contented  themselves  with  so  framing  their  constitutions 
as  merely  to  discourage  Negro  immigration.  This  fear 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  33 

of  an  irruption  of  Negroes  into  the  Northern  states  was 
a  fact  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  to  reckon  at  every 
step  he  took  in  the  direction  of  emancipation.  In  his 
second  annual  Message,  December  i,  1862,  he  devoted 
considerable  space  to  urging  the  adoption  by  Congress 
of  resolutions  providing  for  gradual  emancipation  by 
constitutional  amendment.  One  of  his  arguments  was 
addressed  to  this  very  fear  of  an  influx  of  Negroes  to  the 
North,  in  the  event  of  their  emancipation.  He  con 
cluded  his  reasoning  against  such  a  possibility  with 
this  significant  query:  "And  in  any  event,  cannot 
the  North  decide  for  itself  whether  to  receive  them?"* 
Already,  on  June  lyth,  nearly  six  months  before,  in 
voting  on  the  adoption  of  a  new  constitution,  his  own 
state  had  answered  his  question  with  a  majority  of 
100,590  votes  out  of  a  total  of  243,202  votes  cast  on  the 
proposition,  in  favour  of  the  continued  exclusion  of  the 
Negro  from  Illinois.  Six  propositions  were  submitted, 
including  that  on  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  itself. 
Three  of  these  dealt  with  discriminations  against  free 
Negroes,  and  they  were  the  only  ones  that  were  carried. 
To  guard  against  the  evils  which  might  follow  the  pos 
sible  failure  of  the  Negro  exclusion  proposition  it  was 
also  determined  to  exclude  them  from  the  suffrage  by  a 
majority  of  176,271,  out  of  a  total  vote  of  247,569. 
The  constitution  itself  failed,  by  a  majority  of  16,051 
votes  out  of  a  total  of  266, 155. f  The  statute  books  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  state  contained  as  severe  and  drastic  anti- 

*  "Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,"  Vol.  6,  pp.  140,  141. 
t  "The  Illinois  Constitutional  Convention   of  1862,"  O.  M.  Dickerson,  pp. 
23,  24,  University  of  Illinois  Bulletin,  Vol.  2,  No.  5, 


34       The  American  Race  Problem 

Negro  legislation  as  could  be  found  in  the  laws  of  any 
"free  state"  in  the  Union.  This  vote  merely  registered 
a  sentiment  unchanged  since  the  adoption  of  the  consti 
tution  of  1848.  Yet,  in  1865,  a  great  Illinois  paper  thus 
indulged  itself  on  the  freedmen  statutes  then  just  en 
acted  by  Mississippi:  "We  tell  the  white  men  of 
Mississippi  that  the  men  of  the  North  will  convert  the 
state  of  Mississippi  into  a  frog  pond  before  they  will 
allow  any  such  laws  to  disgrace  one  foot  of  soil  in  which 
the  bones  of  our  soldiers  sleep,  and  over  which  the  flag 
of  freedom  waves."* 

This  throws  a  flashlight  upon  the  temper  of  the  times, 
and  would  be  humorous  were  it  not  so  serious.  But  it 
also  suggests  this  reflection  for  those  of  us  who  under 
take  to  study  and  discuss  the  problem  left  us  as  a  heri 
tage  from  conditions  created  forty  years  ago.  We 
would  do  well  to  sweep  our  own  doorsteps  before  calling 
attention  to  the  condition  of  our  neighbour's.  It  is  a 
fundamental  principle  of  every  proceeding  in  equity 
that  the  complainant  come  into  court  with  clean  hands ; 
yet  in  the  problem  before  us  it  is  one  as  easily  and 
frequently  violated  now  as  we  know  it  to  have  been 
in  1865. 

We  need  not  imagine  that  we  have  a  monopoly  of 
Negro  suffrage  history.  We  see  a  suggestive  parallel 
in  the  history  of  the  franchise  in  Cape  Colony.  When 
representative  government  was  granted  that  colony, 
and  later  responsible  government,  the  Negro  was  not 

*  Chicago  Tribune,  December  i,  1865;  quoted  in  "Reconstruction  in  Missis 
sippi,"  Garner,  p.  115,  note. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  35 

discriminated  against.  He  was  simply  ignored,  because 
so  few  were  qualified,  just  as  in  the  American  colonies. 
It  was  probably  as  much  of  a  discovery  there  to  find 
that  he  was  actually  a  voter  as  it  was  in  Pennsylvania, 
or  North  Carolina,  or  Connecticut.  The  status  quo  was 
simply  permitted  to  continue  from  year  to  year  until 
finally  it  was  realised  that  the  Negro  was  becoming  a 
menacing  factor  in  Cape  politics.  Then  what  hap 
pened?  Just  exactly  what  has  happened  in  the  Southern 
states,  and  in  Jamaica,  and  just  what  will  happen  when 
ever  and  wherever  the  numerical  strength  or  racial  traits 
of  the  Negro  begin  to  threaten,  or  in  any  way  interfere 
with,  the  political  supremacy  of  the  white  man.  Negro 
suffrage  was  restricted  by  qualifications  which  we  need 
not  here  stop  to  consider.  It  is  a  coincidence  that  the 
subject  was  simultaneously  agitated  in  both  Cape 
Colony  and  Mississippi.  Action  was  taken  by  the  Cape 
Government  in  1892,  the  new  constitution  of  Mississippi 
having  been  adopted  in  1890.  But  in  the  succeeding 
fourteen  years,  owing  to  a  relatively  small  English 
population  and  an  increase  in  the  number  of  qualified 
Negro  voters,  affairs  at  the  Cape  have  again  assumed 
an  unhappy  aspect.  There  is  one  Southern  state,  with 
the  largest  Negro  population  in  the  Union,  which  has 
never  embodied  suffrage  restrictions  in  its  constitution. 
To-day  [1906]  there  is  a  campaign  on  in  the  state  of 
Georgia  in  which  this  proposition  is  the  principal  issue, 
while  at  Cape  Colony,  several  thousand  miles  away,  you 
will  find  similar  political  discord,  with  similar  declara 
tions  and  counter  declarations  as  to  the  necessity  or 


36        The  American  Race  Problem 

absence  of  necessity  for  a  further  restriction  of  the 
Negro  vote. 

"The  Negroes  ...  are  becoming  year  by  year  a 
more  formidable  element,  and,  if  unrestrained,  must 
inevitably  undermine  the  very  foundations  of  white 
supremacy.  Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  prophet,  or  the  son  of  a 
prophet,  to  foresee  that  that  law  will  yet  compel  the 
white  man  to  adopt  measures  against  the  Negro  at 
which  to-day  nine  people  out  of  ten  would  raise  their 
hands  in  pious  horror."*  This  prediction  is  not  mine. 
It  is  not  even  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  one  of  the 
present  candidates  for  governor  of  Georgia.  It  is  the 
very  deliberate  statement  of  a  very  level-headed  English 
man,  and  one  of  -the  best  posted  men  in  the  Empire 
on  South  African  affairs,  Mr.  Roderick  Jones,  in  dis 
cussing  the  present  situation  in  Cape  Colony.  In 
quoting  his  language  I  have  merely  changed  the  word 
"blacks"  to  "Negroes,"  and  omitted  the  words  "South 
Africa." 

But  some  English  speaking  white  people  have  not 
even  attempted  to  do  what  Cape  Colony  and  the  South 
ern  states  have  done.  Or,  more  accurately  speaking, 
they  have  abandoned  the  attempt.  Jamaica  lived  for 
137  years  —  a  longer  period  by  two  decades  than  we 
have  lived  under  the  Constitution  — -under  a  self- 
legislating  form  of  government,  if  I  may  so  describe  it, 
granted  under  George  II.  in  1728.  But  a  generation 


*  "The  Black  Peril  in  South  Africa,"  The  Nineteenth   Century  and  After, 
May,  1904,  p.  723. 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  37 

after  Negro  emancipation,  even  with  qualified  suffrage, 
she  found  herself  unequal  to  its  further  maintenance. 
Under  the  stress  of  unbearable  social  and  political  con 
ditions,  following  the  attempt  to  assimilate  the  new  Ne 
gro  element  into  the  body  politic,  the  government  went 
to  pieces  after  the  Gordon  Riots  of  1 865,  and  rather  than 
longer  attempt  to  perpetuate  a  farce,  voluntarily  sur 
rendered  its  ancient  charter  to  the  crown.  It  is  the 
merest  sophistry  to  try  to  make  it  appear,  as  is  some 
times  done,  that  the  failure  of  responsible  government 
in  Jamaica  was  due  to  other  causes.  Mr.  Bryce  frankly 
acknowledges  the  truth  when,  in  congratulating  his 
country  on  the  absence  of  a  larger  coloured  than  white 
population  in  practically  all  her  self-governing  colonies, 
he  remarks  that  the  reverse  condition  "caused  Jamaica 
to  be,  some  time  ago,  withdrawn  from  that  category."* 
To-day,  throughout  the  entire  group  of  West  Indian 
islands,  after  seventy-two  years  of  Negro  freedom, 
England  finds  herself  unable  to  establish  one  responsible 
government.  It  has  often  occured  to  me  that  there  is 
something  for  us  to  reflect  upon  in  the  coincidence  that 
the  year  which  marked  the  end  of  an  era  of  such  experi 
mentation  in  the  greatest  of  the  British  West  Indies, 
witnessed  the  beginning  of  the  movement  toward  a 
similar  attempt  in  the  greatest  experimental  democracy 
the  world  has  ever  known.  But  when,  as  in  Jamaica, 
the  inevitable  happened,  and  the  experiment  reached 
the  point  of  self-demonstrated  failure,  there  was  no  such 


*  "Impressions  of  South  Africa,"  pp.  395,396.     See  also  "Jamaica,"    Frank 
Cundall,  Vol.  3,  in  British  Empire  Series,  "British  America,"  pp.  419,420. 


38       The  American  Race  Problem 

easy  avenue  of  escape  for  the  Southern  people  as  a 
simple  change  of  governmental  form.  Only  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  and  under  the  control  of  the 
party  which  had  created  him,  could  that  convenient 
expedient  for  getting  rid  of  the  Negro  voter  be 
resorted  to. 

I  shall  conclude  this  cursory  consideration  of  the  first 
branch  of  our  subject  with  this  reflection:  I  believe  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  we  can  account  for  most  of  the  real 
differences  which  characterise  the  relations  between  the 
races  here  and  elsewhere,  by  a  recognition  of  the  funda 
mental  differences  of  governmental  theory  and  policy 
under  which,  respectively,  such  relations  are  being 
adjusted  and  developed  toward  ultimate  stability.  We 
have  long  prided  ourselves  upon  being  an  intensely 
practical  and  common-sense  people.  Yet  in  the  most 
serious  crisis  which  has  confronted  us  as  a  nation,  that 
of  determining  the  political  relations  between  two  races 
as  divergent  in  history,  development,  and  capacity 
for  self-government  as  the  Negro  and  the  Caucasian,  we 
were  not  practical,  and  we  exhibited  anything  but 
common  sense.  In  commenting  upon  the  differences 
between  the  conditions  which  justify  the  creation  of 
English  self-governing  colonies  and  those  which  necessi 
tate  the  continuance  of  the  crown-colony  form,  Mr.Bryce 
recognises  as  a  matter  of  course  the  force  of  differences 
of  race  in  determining  differences  of  governmental  policy. 
He  says:  "Every  one  perceives  that  representative 
assemblies  based  on  a  democratic  franchise,  which  are 
capable  of  governing  Canada  or  Australia  would  not 


Contrasts  and  Parallels  39 

succeed  in  the  West  Indies  or  Ceylon  or  Fiji."*  Events 
have  forced  us  to  recognise  this  in  the  government  of  our 
own  dependencies,  but  in  our  more  domestic  affairs  we 
did  all  that  written  instruments  could  do  to  decree  that, 
regardless  of  the  practical  consideration  of  the  differences 
of  racial  elements  in  the  state,  there  should  be  no 
difference  in  the  extent  to  which  such  elements  should 
share  in  the  State's  control.  In  the  differences  between 
the  practical  operation  of  these  two  theories  of  govern 
ment  for  mixed  populations,  we  may  read  an  explanation 
of  such  basic  differences  as  exist  between  conditions  in 
the  Southern  states  and  in  the  British  West  Indies  as 
may  not  be  accounted  for  by  almost  purely  physical 
considerations.  If  you  will  study  racial  conditions  in 
Jamaica  during  the  thirty  years  preceding  1866,  and  in 
Jamaica  under  the  crown,  I  believe  you  will  acknowl 
edge  the  force  of  my  suggestion. 


*  "Impressions  of  South  Africa,"  pp.  346, /547 


II 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  OUR  DIFFERENCES 

I  HAVE  attempted  to  sketch  in  rough  outline  the 
conditions  which  present  certain  parallels  and 
contrasts  between  the  social,  political,  and  economic 
relations  of  various  groups  of  whites  and  Negroes. 
I  have  stated  my  belief  to  be  that  both  the  contrasts 
and  the  parallels  are  grounded  primarily  on  certain 
practical  considerations  which  have  little  to  do  with 
moral  or  ethical  differences  among  separate  groups  of 
white  men.  The  most  important  of  these  differenti 
ating  factors  I  have  already  declared  to  be  that  of  the 
unequal  numerical  distribution  of  our  Negro  population. 
There  is  one  other  worth  considering.  That  is  the 
difference  between  the  two  types  of  Negroes  from 
familiarity  with  which  Northern  and  Southern  people 
form  their  respective  ideas  of  the  race  as  a  whole. 

For  the  most  part,  the  Northern  man,  at  least  the  one 
who  does  the  thinking  and  writing  and  talking  on  the 
subject,  comes  in  contact  with  a  selected  mulatto  type, 
while  Southern  people  are  in  constant  association  with 
the  millions  who  compose  the  masses  of  the  race.  A 
separate  enumeration  of  mulattoes  has  been  made  four 
times,  in  the  censuses  of  1850,  1860,  1870,  and  1890. 
The  results  disclosed  the  fact  that  where  the  proportion 

40 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences    41 

of  Negroes  to  whites  was  lowest,  the  proportion  of 
mulattoes  to  total  Negroes  was  highest.  For  example: 
In  1890,  in  the  South  Central  States  of  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Arkansas, 
Oklahoma,  and  Texas,  the  mulattoes  were  but  14  per 
cent  of  the  total  Negro  population.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  were  32.7  per  cent,  in  the  New  England  group. 
Expressed  differently,  of  all  the  so-called  "Negroes" 
whom  a  white  man  would  see  in  Mississippi,  only  11.5 
per  cent,  would  be  of  the  mulatto  type,  while  of  all 
those  observed  in  Massachusetts  36.3  were  mulattoes. 
In  Maine  57.4  per  cent,  were  mulattoes,  and  in  Michigan 
they  were  53.8  per  cent.;  while  in  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina  they  were  respectively  9.9  per  cent,  and  9.7  per 
cent.*  This  and  my  own  observation  are  my  warrants 
for  expressing  the  opinion  that  when  the  average  North' 
ern  man  writes  or  talks  about  the  Negro  from  personal 
observation,  he  is  unconsciously  thinking  of  another 
type,  the  differences  between  which  and  the  Negro  must 
be  recognised  if  we  would  intelligently  study  American 
race  problems. 

I  am  familiar  with  the  names  of  the  handful  of  pure 
Negroes  who  have  achieved  distinction  in  America. 
And  they  are  after  all  really  but  a  handful.  Practically 
all  the  so-called  Negroes  of  distinction  are  not  real 
Negroes  at  all.  The  name  of  Alexandre  Dumas  is 
claimed  by  the  French  people  as  one  of  the  glories  of 
French  literature.  Nobody  thinks  of  using  him  as 
a  demonstration  of  Negro  capacity,  simply  because  one 

*  "Negroes  in  the  United  States,"  Census  Bulletin  8,  1904,  pp.  15-17. 


42        The  American  Race  Problem 

of  his  ancestors  happened  to  be  a  mulatto  of  Martinique. 
Yet  that  is  just  what  the  dean  of  American  novelists 
does  in  the  case  of  an  American  writer  who  has  less 
Negro  blood  in  his  veins  than  Dumas  had  in  his.  Here 
is  a  man  who  might  defy  an  ethnologist  to  say  that  he 
had  a  drop  of  Negro  blood;  yet  because  an  arbitrary 
social  custom  classes  him  as  a  Negro  (and,  by  the  way, 
he  does  not  live  in  the  South),  thousands  read  his  books, 
or  listen  to  his  spoken  words,  or  engage  him  in  social 
intercourse  —  and  thereby  form  mature  and  well  con 
sidered  judgments  as  to  the  character  and  possibilities 
—  above  all,  the  possibilities  —  of  the  masses  who 
confront  the  Southern  white  man. 

The  Negro  race  never  had  a  truer  or  more  sympathetic 
friend  than  Mary  Kingsley.  In  her  honour,  and  as  a 
memorial  to  her  memory,  the  African  Society  of  London 
was  founded.  But  she  always  told  the  truth  as  she 
saw  it,  and  it  was  she  who  impressed  upon  her  own  and 
European  governments  the  necessity  of  a  knowledge 
of  the  real  people  for  whom  they  were  trying  to  legislate. 
These  are  her  words:  "The  African  who  turns  into  a 
Europeanised  man  is  the  exception  that  proves  the  rule, 
and  whose  isolated  conduct  misleads  the  white  man, 
dazzled  by  the  performance  of  one  in  a  hundred  thou 
sand;  we  seem  blind  to  the  inertia  of  the  great  mass 
that  we  have  to  deal  with  to-day  in  a  state  practically 
unaltered  by  the  white  work  of  four  hundred  years 
duration."*  Is  it  not  reasonable  to  ask  if  it  may  not 
be  too  often  true  that  we  also  are  dazzled  by  the 

*  British  Empire  Series,  Vol.  2,  p.  377.     London,  1899. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     43 

few  into  blindness  of  the  real  needs  and  capacities  of 
the  mass? 

But  it  is  to  the  dull  and  uninteresting  pages  of  census 
reports,  and  to  columns  of  dreary  figures,  that  we  must 
come  at  last  if  we  would  know  the  real  basis  of  differ 
ences  of  American  opinion  on  the  American  race  prob 
lem.  These  figures,  after  all,  are  comprehensive  of  all 
other  subsidiary  causes  and  explanations.  Of  course 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  review  the  distribution  of  the 
slave  population  at  different  periods,  or  even  that  of 
the  freedmen  immediately  after  the  war.  Nor  shall  I 
discuss  the  causes  which  led  to  the  shifting  of  the  centre 
of  Negro  population  476  miles  in  a  southwesterly  direc 
tion  between  1790  and  1900  —  or  the  significance  of 
this  movement.  The  figures  of  present  distribution 
are  sufficient  for  our  purpose,  and  we  have  time  to  glance 
at  only  a  few  of  these — barely  to  skim  the  surface,  in  fact. 

First,  let  me  say  that  I  regard  this  race  problem  as, 
in  a  certain  very  large  sense,  a  national  problem.  Any 
question  capable  of  creating  two  practically  distinct 
schools  of  national  thought  is  certainly  a  national 
question.  But  like  the  tariff,  or  any  other  question  of 
national  dimensions,  it  has  its  peculiar  and  distinctly 
local  phases.  The  particular  situs  of  any  such  problem 
may  be  found  where  the  elements  essential  to  its  com 
position  are  known  to  exist.  The  elements  in  this 
particular  problem  are  the  white  and  Negro  races; 
and  the  conditions  essential  to  its  creation  are  to  be 
found  in  the  juxtaposition  of  sufficient  numbers  of  these 
races.  The  variants  of  the  problem  present  themselves 


44       The  American  Race  Problem 

with  differences  of  local  conditions,  turning  mainly 
upon  differences  in  the  proportions  of  the  two  races. 
And  here  we  come  to  the  prime  factor  of  numerical 
distribution. 

By  the  last  census  there  were  in  the  United  States 
8*833,994  Negroes.  Nearly  90  per  cent.  —  87.4  per 
cent.,  to  be  exact — were  in  the  thirteen  Southern  States. 
Nearly  one  third,  31.4  per  cent.,  were  in  the  three  con 
tiguous  states  of  Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama. 
More  than  one  million,  or  11.7  per  cent,  of  the  whole, 
were  in  Georgia.  Mississippi  contained  more  than 
900,000,  or  10.3  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  combined  contained  but 
3.7  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  The  entire  group  of  New 
England  States  contained  but  seven-tenths  of  i  per 
cent,  of  the  Negro  population  of  the  country. 
Scattered  through  those  six  states  there  were  less 
than  60,000  Negroes,  all  told,  while  in  Charleston 
County,  S.  C.,  there  were  60,312.  In  my  county  in 
Mississippi,  Washington,  there  were  44,143.  This 
means  that  in  this  county  alone  there  were  more  Negroes 
than  in  either  one  of  twenty-eight  states  and  territories 
of  the  Union:  West  Virginia,  Indian  Territory,  Massa 
chusetts,  Delaware,  Oklahoma,  Michigan,  Connecticut, 
Iowa,  California,  Rhode  Island,  Colorado,  Nebraska, 
Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Washington,  Arizona,  New  Mex 
ico,  Montana,  Maine,  Oregon,  Wyoming,  Vermont, 
Utah,  New  Hampshire,  South  Dakota,  Idaho,  North 
Dakota,  or  Nevada.  Not  one  of  these  twenty-eight 
states  and  territories  contained  as  much  as  i  per  cent. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences 


45 


of  the  Negro  population  of  this  country.  Not  one  of 
the  last  fifteen  of  this  group  contained  as  much  as  one- 
tenth  of  i  per  cent. 

There  are  nineteen  of  our  fifty  states  and  territories 
which  contain,  all  told,  less  than  one  two-hundredth 
part  of  our  Negro  population.  Contrast  this  with  the 
fact,  just  stated,  that  three  adjoining  states,  Georgia, 
Mississippi,  and  Alabama,  contain  nearly  one-third 
of  all  the  Negroes  in  America.  Then  you  may  catch, 
in  part  perhaps,  the  significance  of  what  I  mean  when 
I  speak  of  the  effect  of  such  numerical  distribution  upon 
our  respective  points  of  view.  How  can  a  matter 
affecting  in  any  wise  the  relations  between  the  races 
in  the  Southern  states  be  expected  to  appeal  to  a 
Senator  from  Wisconsin,  with  its  2,542  Negroes,  com 
posing  one-tenth  of  i  per  cent,  of  its  total  population, 
with  the  same  significance  that  it  has  for  a  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  with  907,630  Negroes  behind  him  —  a 
number  equal  to  58.5  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population 
of  his  state?  How  can  the  Senators  from  Rhode  Island 
and  from  Georgia  bring  themselves  into  accord  upon 
such  a  question  —  the  one  with  9,092  Negroes  in  his 
state  and  the  other  with  1,034,813  in  his?  Here  is  the 
real  foundation  of  our  differences.  We  are  all  white 
men,  with  different  admixtures  of  different  strains 
perhaps,  yet  with  the  same  race  traditions  behind  us, 
with  the  same  hopes  and  aims  and  aspirations  for  the 
future,  and  subject  to  the  same  impulses  through  life. 
It  is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  this  whole  race  problem 
business  that  since  the  Negro's  emancipation  every 


4.6        The  American  Race  Problem 

single  policy  of  the  national  Government  in  which  the 
Negro  as  a  race  was  in  the  least  degree  concerned  has 
been  entirely  within  the  initiative  and  control  of  the 
section  of  the  country  in  which  only  an  insignificant 
proportion  of  the  Negro  population  had  their  homes. 
The  section  which  contains  nearly  90  per  cent,  of  the 
Negroes  of  the  country  has  had  no  controlling  voice  in 
any  such  policy.  The  Negro  has  thus  been  a  hapless 
bone  of  contention  between  the  white  people  of  the 
section  which  has  legislated  for  him  and  about  him  and 
because  of  him,  and  those  of  the  section  which  has 
absolutely  dominated  the  local  situation  of  the  masses 
of  the  race. 

To  make  a  further  comparison:  My  state  contains 
more  Negroes  than  do  the  combined  twenty-eight  states 
and  territories  enumerated  above,  with  the  great  states 
of  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Indiana 
thrown  in  for  good  measure.  To  the  thirty-three  states 
this  gives  us,  you  may  add  New  Jersey  and  Kansas,  and 
make  the  number  thirty-five.  After  thus  offsetting 
with  my  state  the  combined  Negro  population  of  every 
state  and  territory  in  the  Union  outside  the  South, 
barring  only  Missouri,  which  is  itself  part  Southern, 
we  would  still  have  a  surplus  of  27,959  Negroes.  These 
would  be  more  than  enough  to  again  duplicate  the 
combined  Negro  population  of  both  Iowa  and  Connecti 
cut.  There  are  more  Negroes  in  Mississippi  than  in 
Cape  Colony,  or  Natal,  even  with  the  great  territory  of 
Zululand  annexed  to  the  latter;  more  than  in  the 
Transvaal,  and  not  far  from  as  many  as  in  both  the 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     47 

Boer  colonies  combined;  more  than  in  Jamaica  and 
Barbadoes  combined;  more  than  in  Trinidad  and  all 
the  remaining  English  islands  combined  (excluding 
those  just  named);  more  than  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico 
combined;  more  than  in  either  Haiti  or  Santo  Domingo.* 
Occasionally  we  hear  a  Southern  man  remark  that 
the  North  knows  little  or  nothing  about  the  Negro,  and 
has  little  or  no  opportunity  to  learn  anything  about 
him.  There  is  a  measure  of  truth  in  the  first  part  of  the 
assertion,  though  the  latter  part  must  be  somewhat 
qualified.  The  North  is  every  year  learning  more  about 
the  Negro,  and  about  some  of  the  universal  questions 
growing  out  of  his  presence.  The  leading  authorities 
to-day  on  several  phases  of  Southern  conditions,  or  on 
subjects  ordinarily  classed  as  peculiarly  Southern,  are 
Northern  men.  Professor  William  A.  Dunning  is  the 
best  authority  we  have  on  political  reconstruction; 
Mr.  Carl  Kelsey,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
has  made  the  best  study  of  the  Negro  farmer  that  I 
have  seen ;  Professor  James  Elbert  Cutler  has  given  us  the 
only  study  of  the  subject  of  lynching  worth  the  reading, 
and  it  is  an  admirable  piece  of  work;  Professor  M.  B. 
Hammond,  of  Ohio,  is  the  author  of  the  standard  work 
on  the  cotton  industry ;  Professor  Walter  F.  Willcox 
is  easily  the  leading  authority  in  the  United  States  on 
Negro  statistics.  Not  one  of  these  men  ever  lived  in 
the  Southern  states.  But  for  all  that,  if  we  frame  the 
statement  differently,  and  say  that  the  North  knows 


*  The  figures  for  foreign  Negro  population  were  the  latest  obtainable  from 
census  reports  and  estimates  at  the  time  this  paper  was  prepared  in  1905. 


48       The  American  Race  Problem 

little  about  the  rather  vague,  indefinable  thing  we  call 
"the  race  problem,"  we  are  well  within  the  limits  of 
conservative  truth.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  even 
this  statement  replied  to  by  an  enumeration  of  the 
number  of  Negroes  in  various  Northern  states.  This 
simply  misses  the  crux  of  the  whole  question  —  the 
relative  proportions  of  the  races.  An  isolated  locality, 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  "San  Juan  Hill"  district  of 
New  York  City,  may  have  a  race  problem  —  through 
a  heavy  congestion  of  Negro  population.  But  this  is 
entirely  local. 

There  are  twice  as  many  Negroes  in  New  York  State 
as  in  my  county.  But  in  New  York  they  constitute 
only  an  insignificant  1.4  per  cent,  of  the  population. 
They  are  swallowed  up  in  an  ocean  of  white  people, 
and  are  simply  numerically  incapable  of  creating  a  race 
problem.  In  my  county  they  are  89.7  per  cent,  of 
the  population,  while  for  the  country  districts,  and  the 
county  is  practically  all  country,  they  compose  94.2  per 
cent,  of  our  population.  Here  a  handful  of  white  people 
is  swallowed  up  in  a  mass  of  Negroes  • —  the  proportion 
being  about  nine  to  one.  There  are  fifty-five  counties  in 
the  Sou  thin  which  the  Negroes  constitute  more  than  75 
per  cent,  of  the  population.  They  constitute  1.4  per  cent, 
of  the  population  of  the  New  England  hills,  and  62.9 
per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  Mississippi  alluvial 
region.  The  New  England  and  Western  states  contain 
12.8  per  cent,  of  the  total  population  of  this  country, 
and  but  i  per  cent,  of  its  Negro  population.  I  have 
said  that  there  are  nineteen  of  our  fifty  states  and  terri* 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     49 

tones  which  have  less  than  one  two-hundredth  part  of  our 
Negro  population:  these  same  nineteen  states  contain 
more  than  one-eighth  of  the  total  population  of  the 
country.  The  Negro  constitutes  58.5  per  cent,  of  the 
population  of  Mississippi,  and  i.i  per  cent,  of  that  of 
Massachusetts.  He  is  58.4  per  cent,  in  South  Carolina 
and  1.4  per  cent,  in  New  York.  He  is  47.1  per  cent, 
in  Louisiana  and  1.8  per  cent,  in  Illinois.  He  is  46.7  per 
cent,  in  Georgia  and  seven-tenths  of  i  per  cent,  in  Michi 
gan.  For  every  100,000  white  people  in  Massachusetts 
there  are  1,154  Negroes.  For  each  100,000  whites  in 
Mississippi  there  are  141,552  Negroes.  In  New  York 
the  proportion  of  Negroes  to  100,000  whites  is  1,387; 
in  South  Carolina  it  is  140,249.  In  Michigan  it  is  659, 
in  Alabama  it  is  82,636;  in  Illinois  it  is  1,797,  while 
in  Georgia  it  is  87,600;  in  Ohio,  2,387;  in  Louisiana, 
89,199;  it  is  2,554  in  Pennsylvania,  and  77,600  in 
Florida.  For  every  100,000  white  people  in  the  United 
States  there  are  13,223  Negroes.  In  the  South  Atlantic 
group  of  states  the  proportion  rises  to  55,607:  in  the 
North  Atlantic  group  it  falls  to  1,866.  It  is  42,726  in 
the  South  Central  division,  and  only  1,923  in  the  North 
Central.  In  the  Western  division  there  are  but  781 
Negroes  for  each  100,000  white  people.* 

I  have  said  that  the  state  of  Mississippi  contained 
more  Negroes  than  all  the  states  and  territories  outside 
the  South  combined,  including  West  Virginia.  This 
bare  statement  may  not  impress  you  as  being  particu- 


*  All  the   basic   figures  used   here  may  be  found  in  Census  Bulletin  8,  1904, 
"Negroes  in  the  United  States," 


50       The  American  Race  Problem 

larly  significant,  but  let  us  see  what  it  really  means. 
Their  Negro  population  in  1900  was  879,671.  This  was 
27,959  less  than  that  of  Mississippi.  The  latter  state 
contained  907,630  Negroes.  But  we  must  not  lose 
sight  of  the  relative  proportions  of  the  two  races  — 
which  is  the  real  essence  of  the  matter.  Against  the 
less  than  nine  hundred  thousand  Negroes  scattered 
through  this  group  of  thirty-five  states  and  territories 
we  must  place  49,081,797  white  people.  Against  the 
more  than  nine  hundred  thousand  Negroes  compacted 
in  the  one  state  of  Mississippi,  we  have  a  white  popula 
tion  numbering  641,200. 

The  Negro  population  of  Washington  county,  Mis 
sissippi,  is  greater  than  that  of  the  combined  states 
and  territories  of  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Washington, 
Arizona,  New  Mexico,  Montana,  Maine,  Oregon,  Wyo 
ming,  Vermont,  Utah,  Idaho,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  New  Hampshire,  Nevada,  Nebraska,  and 
California.  These  states  have  a  Negro  population  of 
39,012,  less  by  5,131  than  the  44,143  Negroes  in  my 
county.  Again,  look  at  the  matter  of  relative  numbers. 
Against  this  insignificant  number  of  Negroes,  less  than 
forty  thousand,  scattered  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific,  we  find  a  white  population  of  10,334,109. 
Against  the  44,143  Negroes  living  within  the  confines 
of  my  county,  we  have  a  handful  of  white  people, 
numbering  5,073  all  told. 

None  of  these  eighteen  great  states,  except  Nebraska 
and  California,  has  as  many  Negroes  as  we  have  in  the 
little  town  which  is  the  county  seat  of  my  county.  The 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     51 

nearest  approach  to  it  is  to  be  found  in  Minnesota,  in 
the  length  and  breadth  of  which  state  the  census  enu 
merators  were  able  to  discover  just  4,959  Negroes. 
Greenville,  my  county  capital,  had  4,987,  giving  her  a 
majority  of  28.  In  the  matter  of  relative  proportions, 
however,  Minnesota  had  a  little  the  better  of  us.  Her 
white  population  was  1,737,036,  against  our  2,644, 
giving  her  a  clear  white  majority  over  Greenville  of 
1,734,392.  In  the  halcyon  days  about  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  carpet-bag  rule  in  Mississippi,  we  had 
several  counties  which  could  do  almost  as  well  as  this 
in  the  matter  of  white  majorities.  The  size,  in  fact, 
depended  only  upon  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion. 

Perhaps  a  few  concrete  comparisons  may  interest  you, 
and  render  more  striking  the  differences  between 
Northern  and  Southern  states  and  cities.  If  the  pro 
portion  between  the  races  were  the  same  in  New  Eng 
land  as  in  Mississippi,  on  a  basis  of  her  present  white 
population  the  former  would  have  7,737,836  Negroes, 
instead  of  59,099  as  at  present.  With  the  same  pro 
portion  the  state  of  New  York  would  have  10,019,633, 
instead  of  99,232.  Pennsylvania  would  have  8,598,329, 
instead  of  156,845.  If  the  same  proportion  existed 
in  Chicago  as  in  Charleston,  the  former  city  would  have 
2,152,268  Negroes,  instead  of  30,150.  On  the  same 
basis  Boston  would  have  708,598,  instead  of  11,591. 

Take  the  county  of  which  Ann  Arbor  is  the  capital. 
Here  in  Washtenaw  you  have  a  somewhat  smaller  total 
population  than  that  of  my  home  county.  But  of 
your  47,761  people  only  1,240  are  Negroes.  Of  our 


52       The  American  Race  Problem 

49,216  inhabitants  only  5,073  are  white.  If  the  pro 
portion  between  the  races  in  my  county,  practically 
9  to  i,  were  applied  to  yours,  with  your  present  white 
population  you  would  have  418,689  Negroes,  instead  of 
1,240.  I  might  make  these  figures  more  impressive 
by  applying  the  proportion  which  obtains  in  a  county 
adjoining  mine.  It  is  there  a  little  more  than  fifteen 
to  one.  But  nine  to  one  is  heavy  enough  to  make  the 
comparison  suggestive.  In  the  state  of  Michigan  you 
have  2,398,563  white  people  and  15,816  Negroes,  the 
latter  but  little  more  than  a  third  of  the  number  in  my 
county.  If  the  proportion  between  the  races  were  the 
same  as  in  Mississippi,  with  your  present  white  popula 
tion  you  would  have  3,357,988  Negroes,  instead  of  less 
than  16,000.  If  you  did  not  then  have  separate  schools, 
separate  cars,  and  a  constitution  "guaranteed  to  keep 
in  any  climate,"  the  fifteen  years  which  I  have  spent  in 
the  study  of  race  relations  have  been  worse  than  thrown 
away,  and  I  do  not  understand  even  the  elementary 
principles  of  the  white  man's  human  nature. 

This  review  of  some  of  the  salient  features  of  what  I 
term  the  factor  of  distribution  is  necessarily  merely  a 
cursory  examination.  The  most  I  hope  for  it  is  that 
it  may  possibly  suggest  to  you  some  new  line  of  thought 
or  investigation.  In  this  connection  permit  me  to 
emphasise  what  I  regard  as  one  of  the  most  important 
considerations  in  this  entire  problem  of  race  relations, 
as  differentiating  Northern  and  Southern  conditions. 
It  is  the  fact  that  in  the  North  the  Negro  lives  in  cities 
a.nd  towns,  subject  to  all  the  restraints  of  compact 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     53 

population  and  police  surveillance.  In  the  South  they 
are  numerically  essentially  a  rural  population,  practi 
cally,  if  not  entirely,  free  of  any  such  restraining  and 
controlling  influences.  It  is  in  the  country  districts, 
more  than  in  the  city,  that  those  offences  are  committed 
which  most  militate  against  harmonious  race  relations 
and  in  rural  districts  that  the  severest  reprisals  are 
exacted.  For  the  United  States  as  a  whole,  77.3  per 
cent,  of  all  the  Negroes  live  in  country  districts,  while 
for  the  Northern  and  Western  states,  70.2  per  cent,  are 
an  urban  population.  Furthermore,  Negroes  consti 
tute  practically  a  third  of  the  population  in  the  South, 
both  city  and  country.  In  the  North  and  West  they 
constitute  but  one-fortieth  of  the  city  population  and 
only  an  insignificant,  really  negligible,  one-ninetieth 
of  that  of  the  country. 

Finally,  let  me  offer  you  the  testimony  of  one  who 
probably  is  as  well  acquainted  with  the  white  people  of 
this  country,  North  and  South,  as  any  man  in  it  — 
Booker  T.  Washington.  He  says  if  we  were  to  "move 
four  millions  of  the  eight  millions  of  Negroes  from  the 
South  into  the  North  and  West  ...  a  problem 
would  be  created  far  more  serious  and  complicated 
than  any  now  existing  in  the  Southern  states."*  I 
give  you  his  opinion,  in  his  own  words;  the  appli 
cation  I  leave  to  your  own  good  sense. 

Perhaps  I  should  attempt  to  illustrate  more  definitely 
the  way  in  which  the  juxtaposition  of  these  races  oper 
ates  to  produce  the  more  or  less  uniform  results  which 

*  New  York  Age,  August  17,  1905,  p.  2, 


54       The  American  Race  Problem 

I  have  attempted  to  outline  in  general  terms.  The 
practical  attitude  of  one  race  or  nation  toward  another 
is  determined  by  motives  of  self-interest,  or  instincts 
of  self-preservation,  upon  the  part  of  the  one  which 
is  able  to  control  and  dictate  the  terms  and  conditions 
of  contact  between  the  two.  It  matters  not  whether  the 
races  concerned  be  white  and  Negro  in  Mississippi  to 
day,  white  and  Negro  or  Indian  in  Massachusetts  yester 
day,  white  and  Mongolian  in  California  to-morrow. 
And,  furthermore,  it  matters  precious  little  what  the  so- 
called  "enlightened  sentiment"  of  the  world  outside 
may  be  on  the  subject  immediately  at  issue.  I  am  not 
just  now  concerned  with  questions  of  sentiment.  I 
am  endeavouring  to  offer  you  a  practical  consideration 
of  practical  affairs.  Nor  does  it  make  much  difference 
whether  the  place  of  such  contact  be  the  United  States 
or  Egypt,  Cuba  or  the  Philippines,  Australia  or  India, 
Japan  or  Santo  Domingo.  The  rule  which  I  state  here, 
call  it  "cold-blooded"  if  you  please,  has  not  often  been 
violated  in  the  past ;  it  is  not  likely  to  be  in  the  future. 
And  for  a  recent  specific  illustration  of  the  principle 
I  would  suggest  for  your  consideration  the  history  of  the 
overthrow  of  native  government  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands 
by  the  descendants  of  New  England  missionaries,  and 
incidentally  the  resulting  annexation  of  those  islands  to 
this  country  by  a  Republican  administration.  The 
immediately  actuating  influences  may  be  well  grounded, 
as  upon  actually  demonstrated  facts  or  really  existing 
conditions,  or  they  may  be  founded  solely  upon  apprehen 
sions  of  what  might  occur.  In  either  case  the  controlling 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     55 

motive  is  the  same.  The  only  exception  to  this  rule 
is  in  the  case  of  nations  or  races  between  whom  there 
exists  either  sufficient  identity  of  blood  and  institutions 
or  such  a  great  disparity  of  numbers  or  strength  that 
the  controlling  party  has  no  grounds  upon  which  to 
base  even  an  apprehension  of  untoward  consequences 
from  unrestricted  or  unconditional  intercourse,  or  from 
any  specific  or  general  attitude  it  may  assume  toward 
the  weaker.  Here  the  stronger  may,  if  it  see  fit,  give 
full  play  to  policies  wholly  unselfish  and  altruistic,  or  be 
governed  by  them  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  inclined.  Our 
action  in  the  case  of  the  evacuation  of  Cuba  is  fairly 
illustrative  of  the  exception;  our  action  in  the  case  of 
Columbia  may  fairly  illustrate  the  selfish  and  more 
general  aspect  of  the  rule.  The  conditions  which 
justify,  or  render  possible,  a  departure  from  the  estab 
lished  principle,  are  as  important  in  our  consideration 
as  are  those  inducing  or  compelling  continued  adherence 
to  it.  Both  must  be  kept  in  view  if  we  would  justly 
and  accurately  estimate  the  conduct  of  races  and  nations. 
In  the  exploitation,  limited  or  unqualified,  of  coun 
tries  and  their  inhabitants,  few  people  have  surpassed 
that  branch  of  the  human  family  popularly  known  as 
the  Anglo  Saxon.  Though  they  did  not  begin  the 
African  slave  trade,  they  outdid  the  world  in  keeping 
it  alive.  Though  they  did  not  begin  the  invasion  of  the 
Dark  Continent,  in  the  partition  of  Africa  no  hand  has 
been  more  potent  than  theirs.  I  shall  not  stop  to 
consider  whether  in  its  last  analysis  it  is  better  or  worse 
for  the  Negro,  but  it  seems  a  queer  freak  of  fortune  or 


56       The  American  Race  Problem 

fate  that  of  all  the  Caucasian  peoples,  it  is  the  English 
speaking  branch  with  which  by  far  the  greatest  numbers 
of  the  Negro  race  have  had  to  deal.  Above  all  others 
it  is  the  one  which  has  been  most  uncompromising  in  its 
attitude  toward  the  backward  or  inferior  races,  in  so 
far  as  political  and  social  assimilation  are  concerned. 
At  no  time  in  history,  and  in  regard  to  none  of  these 
races,  do  we  find  a  departure  from  this  line  of  conduct. 
We  witness  it  in  India,  in  Egypt,  in  South,  East,  and 
West  Africa,  in  Australia,  in  America,  and  in  the  East 
Indian  Islands.  The  American  branch  of  the  family 
has  been  equally  true  to  its  traditions. 

A  study  of  our  relations  with  the  only  three  coloured 
races  with  which  we  have  come  in  contact  —  the  Indian, 
the  Negro,  and  the  Mongolian  —  reveals  essentially  the 
same  line  of  policy.  We  have  refused  to  assimilate 
them,  and  in  that  fact  alone  is  our  attitude  toward  them 
differentiated  from  that  toward  the  millions  of  the 
various  white  stocks  that  have  poured  in  upon  us  from 
Europe  during  the  past  hundred  years.  That  we  have 
not  in  any  way  absorbed  them  or  been  absorbed  by  them, 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  despite  the  enactment  of  general 
laws,  or  the  influence  of  extraneous  public  opinion,  the 
white  people  of  each  separate  state  of  the  Union,  instinc 
tively  dominated  by  considerations  of  local  public  policy 
of  which  they  only  could  judge,  have  doggedly,  persis 
tently,  perhaps  even  fiercely  at  times,  but  always  success 
fully,  exercised  the  right  of  absolute  control  over  the 
relations  between  themselves  and  each  of  these  races. 
In  their  respective  attitudes  we  see  illustrated  both 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     57 

the  principle  and  its  exception,  as  enunciated  above, 
which  determine  the  contact  between  superior  and 
inferior  races. 

I  lay  it  down  as  a  fact  which  cannot  successfully  be 
challenged,  that  the  relations  between  the  white  and  Ne 
gro  races  in  every  state  in  the  Union  have  been,  and  are 
now,  controlled  by  considerations  ultimately  governed 
by  the  factor  of  the  relative  numbers  of  the  two. 
I  have  given  numerous  general  illustrations  of  this  rule 
of  conduct,  and  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  exhibit  its 
practical  operation  in  certain  concrete  instances.  For 
this  purpose  I  shall  take  three  states,  two  of  which  are 
entirely  outside  the  sphere  of  "Southern  influence" 
and  the  third  scarcely  much  more  than  nominally 
Southern,  as  the  world  understands  the  term,  although 
a  Southern  state.  These  are  Massachusetts,  Kansas, 
and  Texas. 

The  legislature  of  Massachusetts  became  alarmed  in 
1821  by  "the  increase  of  a  species  of  population  which 
threatened  to  become  both  injurious  and  burdensome." 
Being  fully  alive  to  "the  necessity  of  checking  it," 
the  legislature  appointed  a  committee  to  report  on  the 
wisdom  of  excluding  free  Negroes  and  mulattoes  from 
the  state.  The  report  of  this  committee,  written  by  its 
chairman,  Theodore  Lyman,  Jr.,  stated  that  "1fie  black 
convicts  in  the  State  Prison  formed  146^  part  of  the 
black  population  of  the  state,  while  the  white  convicts 
formed  but  2140  part  of  the  white  population."  The 
committee  also  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  same 
proportions  would  be  found  to  exist  in  the  other  state 


58       The  American  Race  Problem 

institutions.  The  committee  stated  that  it  would  have 
been  "a  matter  of  congratulation  and  satisfaction"  to 
themselves  if  they  had  been  able  to  frame  a  law  which 
would  "have  promised  to  check  and  finally  to  over 
come  an  evil  upon  which  they  have  never  been  able 
to  look  with  unconcern."*  But  they  could  not  agree 
on  a  bill,  and  reported  that  a  law  to  accomplish  this 
purpose  "would  entirely  depart  from  that  love  of 
humanity,  that  respect  for  hospitality  and  for  the  just 
rights  of  all  classes  of  men,  in  the  constant  and  suc 
cessful  exercise  of  which  the  inhabitants  of  Massa 
chusetts  have  been  singularly  conspicuous."  There 
was  already  a  law  on  the  books  which  required  free 
Negroes  and  mulattoes  to  give  bond  to  prevent  their 
becoming  a  charge  on  the  state.  This  law  was 
passed  in  1788,  and  reenacted  two  or  three  times.  In 
1825,  three  years  after  this  report,  it  was  again  reen 
acted,  and  was  not  repealed  until  1834.  Undoubtedly, 
the  character  of  what  this  committee  described  as  an 
"injurious  and  burdensome  species  of  population" 
largely  influenced  the  legislature  to  investigate  the 
propriety  of  adding  to  the  restrictive  laws  already  in 
force  one  of  absolute  exclusion.  The  character  of  the 
Negro  population  everywhere  has  influenced  such  legis 
lation.  I  In  fact,  it  is  the  essential  difference  of  racial 
characteristics  which  forms  the  foundation  of  all  distinc 
tions  drawn  by  the  white  man  between  himself  and  the 
Negro.  This  is  elementary.  | 


*  Report  of  Theodore  Lyman,  Jr.,   for  the  Committee,   January  15,  i8ax, 
"Thorndike  Pamphlets, "Library  of  Congress,  Vol.  5,  No.  15. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     59 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  action  of  the  legislature 
of  Massachusetts  illustrates  the  operation  of  one  of  the 
immediately  impelling  subsidiary  influences  to  which  I 
referred  a  while  ago  —  that  of  apprehension.  The 
Negro  population  of  the  state  had  increased  by  exactly 
three  persons  between  1810  and  1820,  and  in  the  latter 
year  numbered  i  to  76.6  whites;  so  there  appears  to  be 
here  no  very  stable  ground  for  the  alarm  of  the  legis 
lature.  The  real  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  apprehen 
sion  of  an  influx  of  free  Negroes  from  other  states, 
caused  by  the  enactment  by  the  latter  about  this  period 
of  various  laws  discriminating  against  the  Negro  with 
greater  or  less  severity.  In  other  words,  it  was  the 
same  situation  which  Lincoln  confronted  forty-one 
years  later,  in  trying  to  secure  support  for  the  XIII. 
Amendment.  Massachusetts  and  the  North  did  not 
want  the  Negro  in  either  event ;  no  matter  whether  the 
apprehended  influx  were  to  come  from  too  stringent  state 
legislation  on  the  one  hand  or  an  inconveniently  liberal 
constitutional  provision  on  the  other.  This  appears 
plainly  enough  elsewhere  in  the  report  —  when  the 
committee  bases  its  fears  of  such  an  inrush  upon  the 
belief  that  the  Negro  would  pursue  the  same  course  as 
white  people  who  might  be  similarly  discriminated 
against.  Here  is  where  the  committee  displayed  its  ignor 
ance  of  the  Negro — but  that  is  another  story.  In  the 
failure  of  the  legislature  to  be  sufficiently  influenced  by 
its  apprehensions  to  take  drastic  measures  at  this  time, 
we  see  illustrated  an  instance  in  which  actual  conditions 
permitted  the  partial  exercise  of  an  altruistic  policy. 


60       The  American  Race  Problem 

But  when  we  reflect  upon  the  fact  of  an  already  existing 
law  for  controlling  the  state's  Negro  population,  and 
also  upon  the  rate  of  increase  just  mentioned,  three 
in  ten  years,  we  may  conclude  that  the  legislature  felt 
reasonably  safe  in  simply  maintaining  the  status  quo. 
Nor  should  it  have  required  any  great  strain  upon  the 
humanities  for  the  exercise  of  that  hospitality  of  which 
the  committee  speaks,  upon  the  part  of  516,547  white 
people  toward  6,740  Negroes — -a  considerable  number 
of  the  latter  being  in  poor  houses  and  jails.  We  need 
not  feel  that  we  are  reflecting  upon  the  hospitality  of  the 
good  people  of  Massachusetts  of  that  old  day  if  we  ask 
the  question,  what  in  all  human  probability  would  have 
been  the  action  of  the  legislature  if,  instead  of  this 
handful  of  Negroes,  with  their  known  rate  of  increase, 
they  had  numbered  a  half,  or  a  quarter,  of  a  million  — 
or  even  one  hundred  thousand?  We  may  couple  this 
with  a  question  as  to  what  would  be  the  action  of  Louisi 
ana  to-day,  if  we  assume  a  Negro  population  of  6,740, 
or  of  double  that  number,  on  some  such  suggestion  as 
requiring  the  railway  systems  of  the  state  to  provide 
separate  cars  and  accommodations  for  such  of  this 
number  as  occasionally  might  happen  to  travel.  We 
do  not  need  any  profound  philosophy  to  answer  either 
question.  All  we  want  is  a  modicum  of  common  sense. 
For  a  period  of  138  years  Massachusetts  prohibited 
intermarriage  between  whites  and  Negroes  or  mulattoes. 
The  statute  of  Queen  Anne  of  1 705  may  be  said  originally 
to  have  been  tinctured  by  the  religious  objection  to  a 
union  between  Christians  and  pagans.  But  it  was 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     61 

several  times  reenacted  long  after  such  influences  had 
ceased  to  exist.  It  was  finally  repealed  in  1843.  By 
such  action  Massachusetts  did  not  by  any  means  intend 
to  declare  in  favour  of  racial  intermarriage.  The  real 
significance  of  the  repeal  was  that,  whether  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  the  numerical  insignificance  of  the 
Negro  population  had  finally  brought  possibly  a  major 
ity  of  the  whites  to  a  point  from  which  they  were  able  to 
view  with  entire  indifference  any  possible  consequences 
of  a  formal  reversal  of  the  ancient  policy  of  the  state. 
Here,  too,  we  have  a  situation  in  which  the  idealist  or 
the  doctrinaire  who  might  wish  to  remove  from  the 
statute  books  every  remaining  vestige  of  discriminating 
law  could  receive  at  least  the  negative  support  of  the 
practical  man.  The  latter  might  simply  ask  himself, 
What  difference  does  it  make  ? 

In  an  address  in  New  York  some  time  ago,  President 
Eliot,  of  Harvard,  declared  in  unequivocal  terms  that 
Northern  and  Southern  opinion  are  as  one  with  regard 
to  the  question  of  admixture  between  the  races.  He 
said  further  that  a  supposed  danger  of  racial  impair 
ment  should  not  influence  practical  measures,  as  in  so 
far  as  it  might  proceed  it  would  be  chiefly  the  result 
of  vice  on  the  part  of  white  men.*  It  is  easy  to  say 
what  should  or  should  not  influence  our  practical  atti 
tude,  but  if  the  Negro  population  of  Massachusetts  had 
been  30,  or  40,  or  50  per  cent,  of  the  whole,  instead  of 
1.2  per  cent.,  can  we  believe  that  the  legislature  would 
have  removed  the  restriction  on  intermarriage?  As  a 

*  "The  Work  and  Influence  of  Hampton,"  1904,  p.  9. 


62       The  American  Race  Problem 

matter  of  fact,  for  the  past  five  years,  of  all  the  Negro 
marriages  in  Massachusetts,  an  average  of  about  10  per 
cent,  have  been  mixed.  Moreover,  in  these  cases  the 
white  party  is  the  woman,  very  infrequently  the  man. 
Of  the  52  mixed  marriages  in  37  towns  and  cities  of  the 
state  in  1 900,  43  were  between  white  women  and  Negro 
men.*  Suppose  the  Negro  population  of  Massachusetts 
had  increased  to  500,000  since  the  repealing  act  of  1843, 
instead  of  to  only  32,000  in  1900,  and  the  relative  percen 
tage  of  such  marriages  were  the  same  as  now.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  the  practical  bearing  of  such  legislation 
under  the  conditions  which  would  then  obtain. 

During  the  five  years  from  1900  to  1904  there  were 
143  marriages  between  Negroes  and  whites  in  the  city 
of  Boston,  and  907  in  which  both  parties  were  Negroes. 
In  other  words,  with  a  Negro  population  of  11,591  there 
were  1,050  marriages.  Of  these,  143,  or  13.6  per  cent., 
if  my  calculation  is  correct,  married  white  persons.  Of 
these  mixed  marriages  133  were  cases  of  white  women 
marrying  Negro  men,  while  only  10  white  men  married 
Negro  women.  With  the  white  woman  in  this  instance 
representing  93  per  cent,  of  her  race's  participation  in 
such  alliances,  it  is  not  safe  to  dogmatise  as  to  the 
processes  of  race  intermixture.!  And  my  investigations 

*  Report  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labour,  March,  1904,  Pub. 
Doc.  15,  Part  3,  p.  263. 

t  Annual  Reports  of  the  Registry  Department  of  the  City  of  Boston;  for 
1900,  pp.  14,  15;  1901,  pp.  37,38;  1902,  pp.  155,  156;  1903,  pp.  iS3,  iS4;  1904. 
pp.  181,  182.  Under  the  classification  of  "coloured"  I  have  eliminated  Indians, 
Chinese,  and  Japanese.  These  records  are  the  best  I  have  found  as  to  clearness 
and  detail.  I  acknowledge  thanks  to  Mr.  E.  W.  McGlennen,  Registrar,  for 
courtesies  extended.  Anyone  interested  in  this  subject  will  find  a  valuable  and 
suggestive  discussion  in  Hoffman's  "Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  Ameri 
can  Negro,"  Chapter  IV.,  "Race  Amalgamation." 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     63 

thus  far  lead  me  to  believe  that  the  same  conditions 
exist  in  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York. 

Of  course  only  a  very  few  people  keep  in  touch  with 
such  isolated  figures,  and  legislation  against  such  inter 
marriage  may  be  ascribed  to  the  instinctive  racial  self- 
preservation  of  the  white  man,  rather  than  to  mathe 
matical  demonstrations  of  the  consequences  of  a  different 
policy.  It  is  idle  to  charge  it  to  "race  prejudice,"  as 
that  term  is  commonly  understood. 

Individual  actions  are  often  the  mainsprings  of  public 
sentiment,  if  their  correlation  be  such  as  to  make  a 
sufficiently  broad  appeal.  Without  regard  to  either 
reason  or  justice  it  is  a  common,  almost  unconscious, 
process  of  thought  to  ascribe  to  the  mass  the  characteris 
tics  and  attributes  of  the  individual.  By  the  same 
process,  and  equally  without  a  well  reasoned  basis, 
it  is  also  common  mentally  to  hold  the  mass  responsible 
for  the  conduct  of  the  individual.  Both  the  Southern 
white  man  and  the  Southern  Negro  have  suffered  through 
the  operation  of  this  natural  mental  process.  It  is  not 
possible  to  measure  the  full  and  ultimate  effect  upon 
this  country  of  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  in  Havana 
Harbour.  We  do  know  that  it  had  a  tremendous 
immediate  effect  upon  the  popular  mind.  Upon  a 
smaller  scale  the  action  of  communities  or  states  is 
influenced  by  just  such  concrete  incidents.  Any  student 
of  American  politics  can  appreciate  the  practical  force 
of  this  truth,  as  manifested  at  every  election.  We  find 
also  a  case  somewhat  in  point  in  the  history  of  Negro 
suffrage  in  Pennsylvania.  One  of  the  features  of  the 


64       The  American  Race  Problem 

movement  for  confining  the  suffrage  to  whites,  in  the 
convention  of  1837-38,  was  the  number  of  petitions  in 
its  favour  sent  up  from  Bucks  County,  prompted  directly 
by  the  fact  that  in  that  county  a  Negro  once  had  the 
temerity  to  run  for  the  legislature. 

These  two  facts  —  the  effect  of  seemingly  detached 
actions,  and  the  identification  of  the  individual  with 
the  mass  —  play  an  important,  but  little  appreciated, 
part  in  influencing  and  determining  race  relations.  I 
shall  try  to  illustrate  their  significance  by  the  case  of 
the  separate  car  law  of  Texas,  and  that  of  the  separate 
school  legislation  of  Kansas. 

Probably  the  commonest  of  all  the  mistakes  of  opinion 
as  to  the  attitude  of  the  Southern  white  man  toward  the 
Negro  arises  out  of  the  legal  separation  of  the  two  races 
in  cars  and  schools.  Such  legislation  is  described  as 
"petty  persecution  of  the  Negro,"  and  attributed  to  a 
desire  to  "humiliate,  stigmatise,  and  degrade  him." 
These  quotations  are  fairly  typical  editorial  expressions 
of  opinion  on  the  question  of  Southern  motive.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  such  legislation  is  the  embodiment  of 
enlightened  public  policy,  and  is  the  surest  guarantee 
of  a  minimum  amount  of  friction  between  the  races. 
In  almost  every  instance  of  separate  car  legislation, 
public  sentiment  was  crystallised  into  law  as  the 
immediate  result  of  intolerable  local  conditions,  not 
infrequently  accompanied  by  concrete  acts  of  racial 
violence.  Local  manifestations  of  irritation  and  im 
patience  arising  out  of  racial  contact  occur  here  and 
there  throughout  the  North  and  Ea^c  from  time  to  time. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     65 

But  thus  far  in  none  of  these  states  are  conditions 
sufficiently  uniform  to  furnish  a  general  state  response 
to  local  sentiment.  I  quite  distinctly  recall  the  intro 
duction  of  a  bill  in  the  legislature  of  a  Western  state  a 
few  years  ago  to  prevent  intermarriage  between  the 
races.  It  was  prompted  by  a  peculiarly  distressing 
case  of  the  kind — but  it  failed  to  meet  with  sufficient 
response  to  become  a  law. 

The  Negro  population  of  Texas  has  never  been 
enough  to  present  for  the  entire  state  all  the  phases  of 
the  race  problem  as  we  find  it  in  South  Carolina,  Missis 
sippi,  Louisiana,  and  some  other  Southern  states.  In 
1900  there  were  in  round  numbers,  six  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  Negroes  to  two  million  four  hundred 
thousand  white  people.  But  it  has  been  sufficient  in 
various  places  to  cause  some  acute  local  conditions  to 
present  themselves,  and  large  enough  in  the  state  as  a 
whole  to  insure  a  final  response  to  local  demands.  The 
separate  coach  law,  here,  as  in  several  other  states, 
merely  represented  the  culmination  of  a  public  senti 
ment  which  developed  through  a  number  of  years. 
The  law  was  not  passed  until  it  had  clearly  become 
necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  peace  and  order,  and 
the  prevention  of  racial  outbreaks  in  many  parts  of 
the  state.  Not  until  twenty-five  years  after  the  Civil 
War,  when  the  state  contained  practically  five  hundred 
thousand  Negroes,  was  the  legislature  finally  compelled 
to  act.  It  is  idle  —  it  is  childishly  petulant  and  ignorant 
—  to  charge  this  action  to  a  desire  to  "humiliate  the 
Negro,"  or  to  "subject  him  to  petty  persecutions," 


66       The  American  Race  Problem 

The  final  moving  cause,  the  concrete  incident  which 
solidified  public  sentiment  into  a  demand  which  could 
no  longer  be  ignored,  was  a  tragedy  which  occured  on  a 
train  carrying  mixed  passengers.  It  came  only  after 
the  people  of  the  state  realised  that  they  had  postponed 
too  long  the  enactment  of  a  law  which  would  have 
rendered  such  an  occurrence  impossible.  And  in  Ken 
tucky  the  same  result  followed  the  shooting  of  a  young 
woman  by  a  Negro  on  a  train  on  which  there  was  no 
separation  of  the  races.  Each  case  merely  furnished 
the  straw  which  broke  the  camel's  back.  People  who 
are  accustomed  to  seeing  an  occasional  Negro  on  a 
train,  and  he  ordinarily  well  behaved  and  unobjection 
able  in  his  person,  cannot  form  the  faintest  idea  of  the 
conditions  which  render  such  legislation  a  necessity. 
There  are  sections  in  every  Southern  state  from  which 
no  demand  for  it  ever  would  have  originated.  But 
when  from  those  districts  and  communities  in  which 
conditions  were  physically  unbearable  a  demand  for 
relief  did  arise,  the  more  favoured  sections  of  the  state 
simply  responded  to  the  appeal.  Of  course  it  would  be 
absurd  to  say  that  there  was  some  specific  incident 
behind  every  law  of  this  character  in  the  Southern 
states.  I  am  merely  seeking  to  illustrate  the  creation 
and  operation  of  public  sentiment  upon  a  basis  of  racial 
contact.  It  is  a  question  of  conditions  —  not  one  of 
geography.  If  only  an  insignificant  fractional  portion 
of  the  population  of  Mississippi  were  Negroes,  there 
would  be  no  separate  cars  in  that  state.  If  more  than 
50  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  Michigan  were  Negroes 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     67 

I  believe  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  you  would  have  them 
here.  It  is  frequently  urged  that  such  laws  work  a 
hardship  on  the  higher  class  of  Negroes,  in  compelling 
them  to  occupy  cars  in  common  with  the  objectionable 
masses  of  the  race.  This  is  simply  one  of  the  regrettable 
incidents  of  an  unfortunate  situation.  The  same  law 
holds  good  for  the  white  man ;  he  is  compelled  to  share 
his  accommodations  with  the  objectionable  members 
of  his  race  also.  Legislation  is  for  the  masses  of  the 
people,  not  for  exceptional  classes,  and  here  at  least 
there  has  been  adherence  to  the  rule.  Separate  car 
laws,  like  those  against  intermarriage,  cannot  in  their 
very  nature  be  localised.  An  intolerable  condition  had 
to  be  met,  and  the  only  practicable  method  was  by  a 
separation  on  racial  lines,  general  in  its  application. 
Apropos  of  separate  cars,  before  we  leave  the  subject, 
I  might  suggest  that  among  the  earliest  cases  to  be 
found  are  those  in  Philadelphia  and  New  England. 
Good  old  Samuel  May  tells  us  with  evident  pleasure 
of  the  "admirable  letter"  in  which,  in  1842,  Nathaniel 
Barney  "one  of  the  earliest  of  the  immediate  abolition 
ists,"  refused  to  participate  in  dividends  on  his  stock  in 
the  New  Bedford  Traction  Railroad  because  Negroes 
were  excluded  from  its  cars.  Apparently  they  were 
not  allowed  to  ride  at  all  —  even  in  separate  coaches.* 
And  in  Massachusetts  in  1840  the  Negro  constituted 
but  a  pitiable  1.2  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the 
state.  Colonel  Higginson  recognises  these  numerous  early 


*  "Some  Recollections  of  our  Anti-slavery  Conflict,"  Samuel  J.  May,  1869, 
p.  399, 


68      The  American  Race  Problem 

New  England  discriminations,  and  in  their  passing  he 
thinks  he  reads  the  final  death  of  similar  laws  and 
customs  in  the  South.*  Maybe  so.  But  when  we 
reflect  that  they  existed  openly  for  so  many  years,  and 
in  modified  form  and  degree  exist  to-day,  in  a  group  of 
states  in  which  the  Negro  has  not  amounted  to  as  much 
as  1.7  per  cent,  of  the  total  population  at  any  time  since 
the  census  of  1790,  we  should  be  rather  guarded  in  pre 
dicting  a  very  speedy  disappearance  in  a  section  contain 
ing  a  Negro  population  amounting  to  practically  33 J 
per  cent,  of  the  whole. 

The  necessity  for  the  separation  of  the  children  of  the 
two  races  in  schools  was  always  realised  as  next  in 
importance  to  laws  against  intermarriage.  Such  separa 
tion  was  in  fact  coincident  with  the  inauguration  of 
Negro  schools  and  has  always  obtained  in  the  Southern 
states.  President  Eliot  says:  "In  Northern  towns 
where  Negro  children  are  proportionally  numerous 
there  is  just  the  same  tendency  and  desire  to  separate 
them  from  the  whites  as  there  is  in  the  South."  He 
says,  further:  "This  separation  may  be  effected  by 
public  regulations,  but  if  not,  it  will  be  effected  by  white 
parents  procuring  the  transfer  of  their  chidren  to  schools 
where  Negroes  are  few."f  The  esential  feature  which 
differentiates  such  laws  from  those  we  have  just  con 
sidered  is  that  they  may  be  made  local  in  their  applica 
tion.  The  Kansas  statute  is  a  case  in  point. 

The  Negro  population  of  Kansas  City,  Kan.,  is  not 

*  Introduction  to  "The  Aftermath  of  Slavery,"  Wm.  A.  Sinclair,  1905,  PP. 

XI,    12. 

t  "The  Work  and  Influence  of  Hampton,"   1904,  p.  9. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     69 

large,  but  in  1900  it  amounted  to  12.7  per  cent,  of  the 
total  poulation  of  the  town.  The  children  of  the  two 
races  had  already  been  separated  in  the  lower  grades, 
but  attended  the  same  high  school,  and  during  several 
years  there  were  sporadic  outbreaks  between  the  two. 
And  here  let  me  call  your  attention  to  one  fact  of  practi 
cally  universal  application.  Whenever  a  personal 
difficulty  occurs  between  a  Negro  and  a  white  man, 
in  the  presence  of  any  considerable  numbers  of  the  two 
races,  without  any  reference  whatever  to  the  merits  of 
the  controversy  the  crowd  instinctively  separates  itself 
on  racial  lines.  This  is  true  regardless  both  of  the 
question  of  geographical  location  and  of  the  normal 
relations  between  the  races.  These  occasional  clashes 
between  the  races  in  the  high  school  of  Kansas  City 
finally  culminated  in  a  tragedy,  just  as  we  have  seen 
it  in  Texas.  This  time  a  white  boy  was  the  victim,  but 
the  immediate  result  of  the  killing  was  the  same.  With 
out  further  delay,  the  Kansas  legislature  passed  a  law 
providing  for  separate  schools  in  Kansas  City.  The 
Negro  population  of  Kansas  is  only  fifty-two  thousand, 
as  against  one  million  four  hundred  thousand  white 
people — being  but  3.5  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  that  under  such  circumstances  the 
legislature  could  have  been  induced  to  burden  the 
state  with  the  heavy  expense  of  maintaining  a  general 
system  of  separate  schools.  But  this  bill  was  of  local 
application,  and  there  were  but  twenty-eight  votes  cast 
against  it  in  the  House,  and  only  five  in  the  Senate. 
It  was  bitterly  opposed  by  the  Negroes  of  the  state,  but 


;o      The  American  Race  Problem 

was  approved  by  the  Governor.*  Governor  Hoch  ac 
companied  his  approval  with  a  special  message,  expres 
sing  his  good  will  for  the  Negro,  but  saying  that  in 
Kansas  City  "local  conditions  are  peculiar."  Its  en 
forcement  has  also  been  opposed  by  the  Negroes,  but 
its  constitutionality  has  been  determined  by  the  Su 
preme  Court,  just  as  its  wisdom  had  been  recognised 
by  the  chief  executive.! 

I  have  collected  authentic  accounts  of  a  number 
of  such  clashes,  of  various  degrees  of  seriousness,  in 
Eastern  and  Western  schools,  but  this  is  the  first  in 
stance  in  which  the  general  sentiment  of  the  state  has 
responded  to  local  demands.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  every  such  outburst  has  resulted  in  a  demand 
for  separate  schools.  Very  often,  as  suggested  by 
President  Eliot,  various,  and  occasionally  devious, 
expedients  are  resorted  to,  to  accomplish  the  end 
reached  by  direct  legislation  in  the  Southern  states. 

Just  a  few  suggestions,  in  conclusion,  on  the  study  of 
this  question.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  who  under 
takes  to  study  the  race  problem  first  to  study  the  Negro. 
Study  him  just  as  we  would  the  Chinese,  Italian,  Russian, 
or  Indian,  in  both  his  native  and  adopted  homes,  and 
without  the  bias,  prejudice,  or  sentiment  which  for  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  in  this  country  have  rendered 
such  attempted  studies  almost  worthless.  There  is  a 
lot  of  common  sense  in  Mr.  Kelsey's  suggestion  that  one 
trouble  with  too  many  Northern  men  who  cannot  under- 

*  House  Journal,  1905,  pp.  562,723;  Senate  Journal,  1905.  P-  362. 
t  Richardson   v.    Board   of   Education   of   Kansas   City.     Pacific   Reporter, 
84,  PP-  538-541- 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     71 

stand  Southern  conditions  is  that  they  insist  on  regard 
ing  the  Negro  as  a  "dark  skinned  white  man."*  We 
have  no  such  fanciful  theory  when  we  approach  the 
Indian  or  the  Chinese.  We  simply  accept  him  as  we 
find  him,  and  study  him  as  he  is.  Master  the  details 
of  the  distribution  of  our  Negro  population,  and  of  the 
relative  proportions  of  the  races.  And  above  all,  dis 
abuse  your  minds  of  the  notion,  if  you  have  it,  that 
your  Southern  brother  is  in  any  essential  a  different  sort 
of  individual  from  yourselves. 

One  thing  else.  Do  not  get  it  into  your  heads  that 
because  you  have  visited  this  or  that  Southern  locality, 
or  talked  to  a  few  of  the  myriads  of  "representative 
Southern  men"  whom  we  have  down  there,  you  have 
located  and  mastered  the  race  problem.  Get  a  descrip 
tive  atlas,  and  study  the  territory  known  to  American 
history  as  "the  South."  I  have  often  said  that  the  only 
study  of  any  race  problem  worth  the  making  is  a  com 
parative  study,  the  basis  of  which  must  necessarily  be 
a  primary  study  of  local  conditions.  But  in  this  broader 
field,  in  attempting  to  analyse  and  account  for  the 
varying  and  often  conflicting  phenomena  which  racial 
contact  will  exhibit  in  different  sections  of  the  United 
States  and  in  its  dependencies,  in  South  Africa,  the  West 
Indies,  and  other  countries,  I  would  warn  you  against 
the  most  dangerous  pitfall  to  the  dilettante  student  of 
race  relations.  This  is  the,  to  my  mind,  well-nigh 
unpardonable  blunder  of  failing  to  distinguish  between 
a  contrast  and  a  parallel.  It  is  the  commonest  mistake 

*  "The  Negro  Farmer,"  1903.  p.  67. 


72       The  American  Race  Problem 

of  the  closet  philosopher  who  undertakes  to  institute 
comparisons  between  Southern  conditions  and  those 
which  exist  elsewhere.  The  truth  is  this  problem  is 
without  a  permanent  home  to-day,  and  could  not  be 
identified  by  description  as  the  property  of  any  par 
ticular  locality.  It  is  a  vague,  indefinable,  intangible 
something,  presenting  a  score  of  different  aspects  in  as 
many  places ;  one  thing  here,  another  somewhere  else,  and 
then  again  not  existing  at  all.  You  will  find  all  shades 
and  varieties  of  Southern  opinion  on  the  general  subject, 
just  as  you  will  in  the  North.  In  fact  you  are  likely  to 
find  substantial  agreement  on  only  two  things,  opposition 
to  "social  equality  "and  a  recognition  of  the  necessity  for 
white  political  and  general  control.  And  even  here  you 
will  find  confusing  differences  as  to  the  definition  of  the 
one  and  the  necessary  means  of  insuring  the  other. 

It  is  safe  and  easy  to  indulge  in  sweeping  generalisations 
—  but  honesty  and  fair  play  should  cause  us  to  hesitate 
to  condemn  our  neighbours  in  such  terms.  It  is  char 
acteristic  of  a  great  deal  of  discussion  of  this  question 
to  dwell  upon  and  magnify  the  darker  aspect  of  Southern 
race  relations.  The  daily  acts  of  helpfulness  and  kind 
liness,  the  thousand  and  one  little  evidences  of  persisting 
good  will  between  the  races,  are  unheralded  to  the  world, 
just  as  in  the  days  of  master  and  slave.  We  hear  a 
great  deal  about  peonage  practices,  but  the  fact  seems 
to  be  lost  sight  of  that  the  judges  and  juries  who  try 
such  cases,  the  prosecuting  attorneys  and  witnesses, 
all  are  Southern  men.  In  the  public  mind  the  South  is 
represented  only  as  the  prisoner  at  the  bar. 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences     73 

In  an  open  letter  to  the  press,  some  time  [ago,  Booker 
T.  Washington  said:  "I  have  said  that  such  lawless 
conditions  exist  in  only  a  'few'  counties  in  the  South, 
and  I  used  the  word  advisedly.  In  the  great  majority 
of  the  counties  in  the  South  life  and  property  are  just 
as  safe  as  anywhere  in  the  United  States."*  In  a  county 
in  Mississippi  in  which  the  Negroes  outnumber  the 
whites  by  nine  to  one,  I  have  seen  a  Negro  tried  by  a 
white  jury  for  the  killing  of  a  white  man,  and  walk  out 
of  the  court  room  free  and  without  molestation,  and  the 
incident  excited  no  word  of  comment  or  surprise.  I 
have  seen  white  men  hanged  who  had  been  convicted  of 
murder  on  Negro  testimony.  Within  the  same 'week 
in  my  state  last  year  a  Negro  was  acquitted  by  a  white 
jury  of  a  charge  of  assaulting  a  white  woman,  and  a  white 
man  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  whitecapping 
Negroes.  There  is  not  a  community  in  the  South  where 
such  things  as  these  do  not  constantly  occur,  but  their 
record  is  buried  in  the  musty  documents  of  courts, 
instead  of  being  trumpeted  abroad.  The  white  people 
in  these  communities  accept  such  incidents  as  mere 
matters  of  course;  they  are  not  grouped  and  paraded 
in  the  pages  of  magazines  as  rare  and  striking  pheno 
mena.  And,  besides,  it  is  not  justice,  but  its  denial, 
the  portrayal  of  which  appeals  to  public  sympathy 
with  certainty  of  response.  This  is  human  nature. 

I  know  of  no  other  community  of  white  people  of 
equal  numbers  in  the  world  to-day  carrying  the  burden 


*  Appeared  in  a  number  of  Southern  papers,  November  27,  1904.  Reprinted 
in  pamphlet  form.     See  p.  4  of  reprint. 


74       The  American  Race  Problem 

borne  by  those  of  the  Southern  states.  I  do  not  mean 
in  an  economic  sense  —  taxation  and  a  tremendous 
mass  of  labour  of  a  low  degree  of  efficiency.  These  are 
things  not  worth  considering  in  comparison  with  what 
I  have  in  mind.  I  mean  the  burden  of  conducting 
affairs  of  government  under  circumstances  which  do 
not  exist  elsewhere;  of  administering  the  same  law  for 
the  two  most  diverse  races  on  earth;  of  so  carrying 
themselves  in  the  various  relations  of  daily  life  with 
these  childish  people  that  their  conduct  may  have  the 
approval  of  their  consciences ;  of  living  with  a  due  regard 
for  the  opinions  of  their  fellow  men,  the  while  oppressed 
by  the  consciousness  that  their  fellow  men  do  not,  will 
not,  or  cannot,  understand.  I  can  give  you  my  thoughts 
in  the  language  of  a  Northern  writer  better  than  in 
words  of  my  own.  Let  me  ask  you  to  take  to  your 
hearts  the  words  in  which  Professor  Cutler  expresses  one 
of  his  conclusions  in  his  study  of  lynch  law  —  to  which 
I  have  already  referred:  "A  judicial  system  adapted 
to  a  highly  civilised  and  cultured  race  is  not  equally 
applicable  to  a  race  of  inferior  civilisation,  and  the 
failure  to  realise  this  fact  and  act  upon  it,  by  making 
special  provision  for  the  control  of  the  Negro  population 
in  the  Southern  states  since  slavery  was  abolished  is  a 
fundamental  reason  for  the  disrepute  into  which  legal 
procedure  has  fallen  as  regards  Negroes  accused  of 
offences  against  the  whites.  The  mistakes  of  Recon 
struction  times  are  not  yet  blotted  out  in  the  South. 
Abstractions  still  control  where  racial  characteristics, 
circumstances,  and  conditions  should  be  the  determining 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences 


75 


factors.  Ever  since  the  Civil  War  the  Southern  people 
have  been  blindly  groping  after  some  system  other 
than  slavery  whereby  two  races  of  widely  different 
interests  and  attainments  can  live  together  in  peace 
and  harmony  under  a  republican  form  of  government, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  vast  number  of  Northern  people 
have  been  misinterpreting  their  motives  and  watching 
every  move  with  a  critical  and  suspicious  eye,  ready  at 
any  moment  to  shout  across  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
that  the  Negroes  must  have  their  rights  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  amendments 
thereto."* 

It  is  no  Macedonian  cry  that  I  woujd  send  up  in  behalf 
of  the  Southern  people.  Nor  is  it  merely  sympathy 
we  crave.  All  we  ask  is  that  the  difficulties  of  our 
environment  be  in  some  measure  appreciated  —  that 
we  ourselves  be  rightly  understood.  Dr.  DuBois  says 
the  Southern  people  are  "essentially  honest  hearted 
and  generous,"  and  that  "this  situation  does  not  fail 
to  interest  and  perplex  the  best  conscience  of  the  South." 
"Deeply  religious  and  intensely  democratic  as  are  the 
mass  of  the  whites,"  he  says,  "they  feel  acutely  the  false 
position  in  which  the  Negro  problems  place  them."* 
In  measuring  the  success  of  efforts  to  give  practical 
effect  to  abstract  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  we 
have  a  right  to  ask  the  world  to  be  slow  in  drawing 
invidious  comparisons  between  those  who  struggle  on 
and  do  the  best  they  can  from  day  to  day  and  year  to 


*  "Lynch  Law,"  1905,  pp.  224,  225. 

*"Annals  of  the  Am.  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,"  Vol.iS,  p.i3Q. 


76      The  American  Race  Problem 

year  with  conditions  which  are  an  inheritance  and  not  a 
creation,  and  those  for  whom  such  things  no  more  exist 
than  does  "the  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream."  We  know 
that  we  are  to  answer  at  the  bar  of  history  for  our  share 
in  the  preservation  and  development  of  the  civilisation 
of  our  race,  yet  history  herself  offers  us  the  guiding 
light  of  no  situation  to  parallel  our  own.  Nor  does  she 
show  us  an  example  of  the  dwelling  together  in  "per 
petual  brotherly  love"  of  large  masses  of  a  stronger  and 
a  weaker  race.  The  golden  rule  has  not  yet  become 
the  universal  guide  of  human  life.  If  out  of  the  mani 
fold  and  trying  relations  between  the  millions  of  these 
two  races  in  the  South  the  white  man  should  emerge 
with  an  unblemished  record,  it  would  be  without  a 
precedent  in  the  annals  of  mankind. 

Let  me  once  more  ask  that  you  do  not  misunder 
stand  the  end  I  have  in  view.  I  do  not  mean  simply 
to  tell  you  that  if  similarly  situated  you  would  do  just 
as  we  do  and  have  done.  That  is  the  stump  speaker's 
convenient  retort,  and  I  am  not  a  politician.  My 
purpose  is  a  worthier  one,  I  hope,  than  that  of  mere 
parliamentary  defence.  In  pointing  out  to  you  a  few, 
and  only  a  few,  of  the  innumerable  parallels  which  mark 
the  history  of  racial  contact,  I  have  merely  sought  to  lay 
the  foundation  for  a  plea  for  the  recognition  of  the 
fundamental  fact  of  our  common  ancestry  and  blood, 
our  common  heritage  of  motives  and  feelings,  of  passions, 
impulses  and  instincts,  the  oneness  of  our  racial  hopes 
and  fears.  The  people  of  this  country  cannot  forever 
misunderstand  each  other  over  this  racial  problem,  and 


Foundations  of  Our  Differences 


77 


I  would  ask  no  greater  reward  for  the  labour  of  life  than 
the  thought  that  when  the  day  of  thorough  understand 
ing  dawns  I  had  in  some  small  measure  helped  to  hasten 
its  approach.  And  in  all  this  I  hold  no  firmer  convic 
tion  than  that  the  greatest  beneficiary  of  a  better  knowl 
edge  of  each  other  by  American  white  men  will  be  the 
American  Negro. 

Just  a  few  words  more.  The  Southern  people  have 
their  faults  and  failings,  and  I  would  be  the  last  to 
attempt  to  minimise  them  —  but  we  must  correct  them 
from  within.  Abuse  and  distortion  from  without  never 
yet  accomplished  a  permanent  reform,  and  never  will. 
The  severest  indictments  of  injustice  to  the  Negro  that 
I  have  ever  read  were  from  the  pens  of  Southern  editors. 
The  most  effective  demands  for  justice  to  the  Negro 
that  I  have  ever  heard  fell  from  the  lips  of  judges  pre 
siding  over  Southern  courts.  But  all  these  possessed 
what  outside  criticism  almost  invariably  lacks  —  the 
saving  sense  of  discrimination.  They  did  not  seek  to 
arraign  an  entire  people  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion, 
but  were  addressed  to  particular  conditions  in  this  or 
that  particular  community. 

Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  as  it  presents  itself 
to  this  generation,  the  most  important  phase  of  the 
race  problem  is  that  of  the  quiet,  mutually  helpful, 
peaceable,  common  occupancy  of  the  soil.  Right  now  it 
seems  to  me  that  at  this  stage  of  the  growth  of  the  Negro 
masses  this  dwarfs  into  insignificance  all  other  con 
siderations.  Certainly  this  is  the  primary,  possibly 
it  may  also  be  the  last,  phase,  for  black  and  white  in 


78       The  American  Race  Problem 

each  locality  mutually  to  solve  as  best  they  may.  This 
aspect  is  essentially  local,  but  whether  the  problem  be 
national  or  not,  it  must  have  a  local  solution.  If  each 
community  be  permitted  to  adjust  its  own  relations 
and  solve  its  own  particular  phase  of  the  problem,  the 
longest  step  will  have  been  taken  toward  the  ultimate 
solution  of  the  problem  as  a  whole.  There  is  no  possible 
workable  basis  of  solution  but  the  individual  and  com 
munity  basis. 

Thousands  of  individuals  and  hundreds  of  communi 
ties  have  already  settled  these  questions  for  themselves, 
and  others  are  working  out  an  adjustment  along  their 
own  lines.  For  such  as  these  nothing  is  surer  in  human 
life  than  that  unsought,  unsympathetic  intervention  — 
whether  in  the  form  of  hostile  and  uncharitable  denun 
ciation  of  one  party  to  the  effort,  or  in  that  of  foolish 
and  ill-considered  advice  to  the  other  —  will  only 
retard  the  normal  outcome — whatever  it  is  destined 
to  be.  After  all  is  said  and  done,  the  problem  in  its 
larger  sense,  the  ultimate  effect  upon  one  another  of  the 
juxtaposition  of  two  such  different  races,  must  be  left 
to  the  slow  processes  of  time.  We  cannot  even  hasten 
the  end.  But  for  the  present  each  race  and  each  sec 
tion  should  summon  to  its  aid  the  virtues  of  patience 
and  charity;  the  patience  which  should  add  to  itself 
"knowledge  and  brotherly  kindness,"  the  charity  which 
"vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  easily  provoked,  which 
hopeth  all  things,  and  rejoiceth  in  the  truth." 


PART  TWO 
SOME  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS 

III.  THE  NEGRO  IN   THE  YAZOO-MISSISSIPPI  DELTA 

IV.  A  PLANTATION  EXPERIMENT 

V.     THE  ECONOMIC  FUTURE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 


Ill 

THE  NEGRO  IN  THE  YAZOO-MISSISSIPPI  DELTA.* 

AMONG  the  many  disturbing  questions  entering  into 
our  complex  national  life,  the  one  which  above  all 
others  seems  to  have  provoked  discussion  in  every  quar 
ter  is  the  so-called  Negro  problem.  Under  this  general 
designation  have  come  to  be  embraced  all  the  various 
and  complicated  questions  arising  from  the  contact 
at  many  points  of  the  black  race  with  the  white.  Not 
since  the  formation  of  this  Government  has  this  dis 
cussion  ceased,  and  ignorance  has  never  been  a  bar  to 
free  participation  in  it.  In  a  discussion  of  these  ques 
tions  in  their  broader  aspects,  though  I  have  devoted 
some  years  to  their  consideration,  I  can  claim  no  pecu 
liar  knowledge  —  no  superior  wisdom.  The  problem 
is  so  extensive  in  its  ramifications,  it  presents  so  many 
and  such  varied  phases,  that  to  my  mind  there  is  but  one 
proper  and  reasonable  method  of  considering  it:  that 
is,  through  the  analysis  and  study  of  its  component 
parts  —  the  attempted  grasp  and  comprehension  of  the 
minor  and  elemental  conditions  and  problems  which 
enter  into  the  composition  of  the  whole.  The  intelli 
gent  study  of  this  question  must  resolve  itself  at  last 
into  a  study  of  local  conditions. 

*  A  paper  read  at  the  fourteenth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Economic 
Association,  Washington,  D.  C.,  December,  1901. 

81 


82       The  American  Race  Problem 

A  lifetime  spent  in  the  "blackest"  of  the  South's 
"black  belts";  a  sharer  in  the  association  between  the 
two  races  in  the  life  of  the  plantation  —  the  most 
constant  and  intimate  association  that  is  possible  be 
tween  them;  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  condi 
tions  surrounding  the  Negro  in  a  section  wherein  I  firmly 
believe  will  be  discovered  the  region  of  his  greatest 
material  possibilities;  these  constitute  my  only  equip 
ment  in  venturing  upon  this  discussion.  It  is  to  a 
consideration  of  local  conditions  only  that  this  paper 
is  addressed. 

In  the  state  of  Mississippi,  between  the  326.  and  35th 
parallels  of  north  latitude,  its  entire  western  border 
washed  by  the  Mississippi  River,  and  most  of  its  eastern 
by  the  Yazoo,  extending  north  from  the  confluence  of 
those  streams  at  a  point  just  above  the  city  of  Vicks- 
burg,  lies  the  strip  of  territory  known  as  the  Yazoo- 
Mississippi  Delta.  The  exact  origin  of  the  word  delta, 
as  applied  to  this  region,  is  not  clear;  though  it  was 
probably  a  simple  extension  of  the  old  and  accepted  use 
of  the  word,  descriptive  both  of  the  character  and  of  the 
peculiar  conformation  of  the  land  built  up  by  the  diverg 
ing  mouths  of  large  silt-bearing  streams.  The  character 
of  the  soil  certainly  justifies  such  a  conclusion,  for  it  is 
entirely  of  alluvial  formation,  detritus  deposited  during 
thousands  of  years  in  which  the  Mississippi  has  poured 
out  its  muddy  flood  waters  over  the  adjacent  country. 

The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta  is  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  in  length,  and  its  greatest  width  is  about 
one-third  of  that.  Its  front  along  the  Mississippi  is  pro- 


/ 

(UNIVERSITY 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta        83 

tected  against  overflows  of  that  river  by  an  unbroken 
line  of  levees,  310  miles  in  length,  averaging  fifteen  feet 
in  height,  with  a  maximum  of  about  thirty.  The  Delta 
differs  radically  from  the  rest  of  Mississippi  in  many 
important  respects,  but  in  none  more  than  in  those 
wherein  the  Negro  is  immediately  concerned;  hence 
only  the  nine  counties  lying  wholly  within  it,  Bolivar, 
Coahoma,  Issaquena,  Leflore,  Quitman,  Sharkey,  Sun 
flower,  Tunica,  and  Washington,  are  considered  here. 
The  alluvial  valley  of  which  these  counties  form  a  most 
important  part  has  been  called  by  the  most  distinguished 
member  of  the  Mississippi  River  Commission,  Judge 
Robert  S.  Taylor,  of  Indiana,  "the  cream  jug  of  the 
continent."  Of  it  he  has  written:  "Nature  knows 
not  how  to  compound  a  richer  soil.  It  can  no  more 
lie  idle  than  the  sea  can  keep  still.  Every  square  foot 
of  it  riots  in  vegetable  life.  .  .  .  It  's  [the  Missis 
sippi's]  floods  came  down  loaded  with  skimmings  from 
the  great  watershed  above.  Overtopping  its  banks, 
the  enriched  water  spreads  far  and  wide  over  the  alluvial 
area,  so  obstructed  in  its  flow  by  the  dense  growth 
covering  the  land  that  its  slackened  velocity  compelled 
it  to  let  fall  its  load  of  sediment  as  it  went.  Thus  the 
floods  built  up  the  valley  year  by  year  in  layers  of 
fatness,  to  live  again  in  incalculable  crops  of  grain, 
fruits,  and  fibres."* 

By  what  warrant  does  this  region  claim  attention  in 
a  consideration  of  America's  gravest  question  ?  Simply 
because  of  the  part  it  plays,  and  is  destined  to  play,  in 

*Tompkins,  "Riparian  Lands  of  the  Mississippi  River,"  1901,  p.  234. 


84       The  American  Race  Problem 

the  lives  and  fortunes  of  a  constantly  growing  percent 
age  of  America's  Negro  population.  This  has  long  been 
recognised  by  the  authority  just  quoted.  He  says: 
"A  feature  of  special  interest  in  this  connection  [he 
was  discussing  the  matter  of  levee  protection]  is  the 
opportunity  which  the  reclamation  of  the  alluvial  valley 
offers  to  the  Negro  to  better  his  condition.  One-half  or 
more  of  its  entire  area  is  suitable  for  cultivation  of 
cotton.  A  bale  per  acre  of  ginned  cotton,  weighing 
500  pounds,  is  the  standard  yield  —  worth  from  thirty 
to  fifty  dollars  according  to  the  ups  and  downs  of  the 
market.  .  .  .  The  Negro  is  not  seizing  this  golden 
opportunity  as  the  white  pioneer  of  the  Northwest 
would  have  seized  it,  but  he  is  not  wholly  neglecting  it. 
In  considerable  and  increasing  numbers  they  are  buying 
land  and  becoming  independent  cultivators.  .  .  . 
Nowhere  else  in  the  South  are  as  favourable  opportuni 
ties  offered  to  the  black  man  as  in  the  reclaimed  Missis 
sippi  lowlands,  and  nowhere  else  is  he  doing  as  much 
for  his  own  uplifting."* 

The  section  of  this  territory  with  which  we  are  con 
cerned  embraces  an  area  of  5,480  square  miles,  contain 
ing  about  three  and  one- quarter  million  acres  of  land, 
with  a  population  of  195,346.  Of  these  but  24,137 
are  white,  while  the  blacks  number  171,209,  a  propor 
tion  of  7.1  blacks  to  i  white.  This  proportion  has 
increased  steadily  from  4.9  to  i  in  1880  and  6. 7  to  i  in 
1890,  while  in  Mississippi  as  a  whole  it  is  almost  station 
ary,  being  now  1.4  to  i,  as  against  1.3  to  i  in  1890  and 

,  pp.  236,  237. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta       85 

1880.  I  think  I  am  not  in  error  in  stating  that  the 
largest  proportion  of  blacks  to  whites  exhibited  by 
the  last  census  for  any  part  of  the  United  States  is  found 
in  one  of  the  counties  of  this  group,  Issaquena,  in  which 
it  is  15.5  to  i.  In  the  same  county  the  proportion  was 
15.7  to  i  by  the  eleventh  census,  and  n.i  to  i  by  the 
tenth.  Of  the  white  inhabitants  of  the  state  but  3.7 
per  cent,  are  found  in  the  Delta,  while  18.8  per  cent,  of 
all  Mississippi's  Negro  population  make  it  their  home. 
Comparison  with  former  censuses  shows  this  per  cent. 
for  whites  to  be  practically  at  a  standstill,  while  that 
for  the  Negro  is  steadily  increasing.  In  1890  these 
percentages  were  3.5  for  the  white  and  17.7  for  the 
Negro,  and  in  1880,  3.4  and  12.6  respectively.  From 
1880  to  1890  the  per  cent,  of  increase  of  the  white  popu 
lation  of  the  United  States  was  26.7,  and  that  of  the 
Negro  13.5.  For  the  state  of  Mississippi  these  percent 
ages  were  13.7  for  the  one,  and  14.2  for  the  other. 
During  that  decade  the  white  population  of  the  Delta 
increased  by  only  17.3  per  cent.,  while  the  increase  of 
the  black  was  no  less  than  60.4  per  cent.  Between  the 
eleventh  census  and  the  twelfth,  the  white  population 
of  the  country  increased  21.4  per  cent.,  and  the  Negro 
1 8. i.  The  figures  for  Mississippi  exhibit  a  white  increase 
of  17.6  per  cent.,  with  22.2  for  the  Negro.  In  the  Delta 
section  of  the  state  the  increase  was  23.5  for  the  white 
race  and  30.2  for  the  black.  The  last  census  shows  that 
the  Negro  constitutes  n.6  per  cent,  of  the  total  popula 
tion  of  the  country,  58.5  per  cent,  of  that  of  Mississippi, 
and  87.6  per  cent,  of  that  of  the  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta. 


86       The  American  Race  Problem 

Yet  here  we  hear  nothing  about  an  ignorant  mass  of 
Negroes  dragging  the  white  man  down;  we  hear  of  no 
black  incubus;  we  have  few  midnight  assassinations, 
and  fewer  lynchings.  The  violation  by  a  Negro  of  the 
person  of  a  white  woman  is  with  us  an  unknown  crime  ;* 
nowhere  else  is  the  line  marking  the  social  separation 
of  the  two  races  more  rigidly  drawn,  nowhere  are  the 
relations  between  the  two  more  kindly. 

For  many  years  this  region  was  largely  a  terra  incog 
nita,  and  the  story  of  its  development  and  opening  ex 
plains  the  figures  of  Negro  population.  The  character 
of  its  white  population,  and  the  conditions  under  which 
its  soil  is  tilled,  explain  the  relations  between  the 
white  man  and  the  black.  Until  recently  the  only 
means  of  communication  between  the  Delta  and  the 
outer  world  were  river  boats,  for  not  till  1883  was  it 
penetrated  by  a  railroad.  We  have  only  to  compare  the 
statistics  of  Negro  population  of  the  eleventh  census 
with  those  of  the  tenth  to  see  the  results  of  railway 
construction. 

The  early  settlers  were  from  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
and  Tennessee.  They  were  all  slaveholders,  and  the 
nature  of  the  enterprises  upon  which  they  embarked 
demanded  the  possession  of  means.  Hence  this  section 
early  came  to  be  the  seat  of  large  planting  operations. 
There  was  no  place  for  the  man  who  was  unable  to  own 
slaves;  no  demand  for  his  services,  other  than  as  an 
overseer.  There  were  no  small  farms,  no  towns,  no 


*  Since  the  above  was  written,  1901,  there  have  been  two  or  three  cases  of 
attempted  assault. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta        87 

manufacturing  enterprises,  no  foothold  for  the  non- 
slaveholding  white  man,  who  was  here  a  negligible, 
if  not  an  absolutely  unknown,  quantity. 

Every  step  taken  in  the  development  of  this  section 
has  been  dependent  upon,  and  marked  by,  an  increased 
Negro  population.  The  railroad  rights  of  way  through 
its  forests  have  been  cut  out  by  the  Negro,  and  every 
mile  of  track  laid  by  his  hands.  These  forest  lands 
have  been  converted  by  him  into  fertile  fields,  and  their 
subsequent  cultivation  has  called  for  his  constant 
service.  The  levees  upon  which  the  Delta  depends  for 
protection  from  floods  have  been  erected  mainly  by  the 
Negro,  and  the  daily  labour  in  field  and  town,  in  planting 
and  building,  in  operating  gins  and  compresses  and  oil 
mills,  in  moving  trains,  in  handling  the  great  staple  of 
the  country  —  all,  in  fact,  that  makes  the  life  behind 
these  earthen  ramparts  —  is  but  the  Negro's  daily  toil. 
The  capital,  the  devising  brain,  the  directing  will,  con 
stitute  the  white  man's  part,  the  work  itself  is  the 
Negro's.  Nowhere  else  does  Negro  agricultural  labour  ^ 
find  a  higher  or  more  certain  wage;  nowhere  do  better 
relations  exist  between  employer  and  employed;  no 
where  are  capital  and  labour  on  better  terms.  There 
are  no  strikes,  no  lockouts,  no  combinations,  no  operat 
ing  on  half  time,  no  reductions  of  force,  and  the  works 
never  shut  down. 

One  of  the  gravest  causes  of  trouble  between  the  two 
races  is  contact  on  a  common  industrial  plane.  A  pe 
culiar  effect  is  almost  invariably  wrought  upon  the 
Negro's  attitude  toward  the  white  man  by  such  asso- 


88       The  American  Race  Problem 

ciation,  exemplifying  the  truth  of  the  old  maxim  that 
"familiarity  breeds  contempt."  I  am  not  now  discuss 
ing  its  cause,  but  one  who  knows  the  Negro  masses 
knows  that  their  ingrained  admiration  for  wealth  and 
station,  strong  as  it  is,  is  no  more  a  controlling  mental 
habit  than  is  their  lack  of  respect  for  the  opposite  con 
ditions.  This  is  as  true  in  the  mines  of  the  North  as 
in  the  fields  of  the  South. 

If  I  were  asked  what  one  factor  makes  most  for  the 
amicable  relations  between  the  races  in  the  Delta  I 
should  say  without  hesitation  the  absence  of  a  white 
^labouring  class,  particularly  of  field  labourers.*  It  can 
not  be  accounted  for  on  the  hypothesis  that  we  have  a 
peculiar  class  of  Negroes,  for  this  population  is  a  com 
mingling  of  blacks  from  every  section  of  the  South, 
brought  here  without  the  slightest  process  of  selection. 
The  white  population  is  composed  of  the  professional 
class,  those  engaged  in  mercantile  and  manufacturing 
pursuits,  and  those  interested  in  cotton  planting,  either 
as  owners  or  managers.  The  white  artisans  are  so  few 
in  number  as  not  to  affect  this  division,  and  the  rela 
tions  between  them  and  the  Negro  are  identical  with 
those  between  the  two  masses  of  population.  Of  the 
field  of  manual  labour  the  Negro  holds  a  practical 
monopoly,  f 

In  saying  that  each  year  his  feeling  grew   stronger 
"that  perhaps  in  the  heat  of  passion,  growing  out  of 

*  Mr.  R.  C.  Bruce  confirms  this  statement.  Publications  American  Economic 
Association,  February,  1906,  pp.  298,  299. 

t  During  the  years  which  have  elapsed  since  this  was  written  this  mo 
nopoly  has  been  visibly  impaired. 


The  YazooMississippi  Delta       89 

racial  and  sectional  prejudice  we  have  not  given  the 
Southern  people  due  credit  for  the  immense  amount 
of  help  rendered  the  Negro  during  the  period  he  was  a 
slave,"  that  he  was  then  "started  on  the  foundation  of 
agriculture,  mechanic,  and  household  arts,"*  Booker  T. 
Washington  has  but  given  expression  to  a  conviction 
which  unprejudiced  study  would  make  universal.  I  am 
thoroughly  satisfied  that  the  conditions  existing  here  to 
to-day  are  largely  a  heritage  from  the  slavery  regime. 
By  the  violence  of  the  civil  strife  which  wrought  the 
destruction  of  Southern  social  and  economic  conditions, 
the  Delta  was  probably  less  affected  than  any  other 
equal  area  in  the  South.  For  this  its  isolation  and  in 
accessibility  easily  account.  Out  of  the  ruin  which  was 
the  legacy  of  war  to  the  Southern  states  no  section 
emerged  with  less  of  violent  change  as  regarded  race 
relations. 

In  the  Contemporary  Review  for  July,  1900,  Mr. 
Philip  Alexander  Bruce  has  drawn  a  faithful  picture  of 
the  old  plantation  system  of  the  South.  He  says  truly 
that  ' '  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  the  old  industrial 
order,"  next  to  slavery,  "was  the  large  plantation." 
He  describes  the  plantation  as  having  been  frequently 
a  small  principality  in  extent,  the  planter  the  absolute 
master  of  his  own  domain,  "his  word  the  supreme  law, 
his  wishes  the  governing  influence."  Mr.  Bruce  then 
sets  against  this  a  picture  of  agricultural  conditions  in 
the  South  of  to-day,  telling  us  that  the  "ruin  of  the  old 
plantation  system  is  complete."  His  portrayal  of  the 

*Tuskegee  Normal  Institute,  annual  report,  1901. 


9° 


The  American  Race  Problem 


essential  features  of  the  old  system  fairly  describes 
existing  conditions  in  the  Delta.  Here  the  era  of  small 
farms  has  not  set  in,  the  process  of  land  division  has 
not  begun.  On  the  contrary,  most  of  the  large  planta 
tions  are  growing  larger,  and  such  small  farms  as 
do  exist  have  not  been  erected  upon  the  ruins  of 
larger  tracts.  Change  of  ownership  has  not  meant 
disintegration,  but  has  been  effected  by  sales  of  prop 
erty  entire. 

It  may  be  remarked  here,  parenthetically,  that  the 
census  rule  treating  every  tract  of  land  on  which  agri 
cultural  industry  is  conducted  as  a  farm,  while  doubt 
less  essential  to  thorough  investigation,  is  misleading 
to  the  student  who  is  ignorant  of  local  conditions  that 
materially  modify  the  application  of  this  method  of  class 
ification.  In  the  language  of  Census  Bulletin  100,  "Agri 
culture  in  Delaware":  "The  number  of  farmers,  that  is, 
persons  operating  farms  as  owners  or  tenants,  is  the 
same  at  any  period  as  the  number  of  farms."  Thus 
every  holding  becomes  a  "farm,"  and  a  tract  of  1,000 
acres,  known  locally  as  a  plantation,  though  entirely 
under  one  ownership  and  management,  would  appear  in 
census  reports  as  so  many  different  farm  holdings,  the 
number  being  dependent  upon  the  number  of  tenants 
living  on  it  during  the  census  year,  the  average  acreage 
governed  by  the  size  of  these  various  arbitrary  and 
temporary  subdivisions.  That  such  figures,  unless 
accompanied  by  an  explanatory  note,  lead  to  inac 
curate  conclusions  is  well  illustrated  in  an  article  in 
the  Boston  Transcript,  May  25,  1901,  based  upon  the 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta       91 

showings  of  the  ninth  census.  Taking  Mississippi  as 
a  "typical  state,"  the  writer  concluded  —  and  this  was 
for  1870  —  that  the  figures  showed  "a  revolutionary  in 
crease  in  the  small  farms,"  "the  great  plantations  of 
some  states  being  almost  entirely  eliminated,  as  in  the 
black  counties  of  Mississippi." 

The  plantations  of  this  section  vary  in  size  from  five 
hundred  to  several  thousand  acres,  and  the  proportion 
of  Negroes  to  white  men  living  on  them,  from  25  to  i 
to  more  than  100  to  i.  Yet  there  is  now  no  more  feel 
ing  of  fear  on  the  white  man's  part  whether  for  him 
self  or  his  wife  or  his  children,  than  in  the  days  of 
slavery.*  As  in  the  olden  time,  so  now,  the  word 
of  the  planter  or  his  representative  is  the  law  of  the 
place,  and  on  the  one  hand  we  have  implicit  obedience, 
on  the  other  firmness  and  moderation.  Certainly  the 
relation  of  master  and  slave  no  longer  exists  here,  but 
out  of  it  has  been  evolved  that  of  patron  and  retainer. 
I  so  designate  it  because  I  know  of  no  other  to  which 
it  more  nearly  approaches.  It  is  not  at  all  one  purely 
of  business,  the  ordinary  relation  of  landlord  and  ten 
ant,  or  of  employer  and  employee. 

The  plantation  owner  or  manager  expects  to  do  more  ' 
than  merely  see  to  the  physical  needs  of  the  Negroes 
under  him,  to  provide  for  their  wants  and  look  over  their 
work.  He  is  called  upon  to  settle  family  quarrels,  to 
maintain  peace  and  order  between  neighbours,  to  arbi 
trate  disputes,  to  protect  wives  from  the  punishment  of 


*  Writing  to-day,  1908,  it  would  be  necessary  to  modify  this  statement  some 
what  —  certainly  for  some  parts  of  this  territory. 


92       The  American  Race  Problem 

irate  husbands,  frequently  to  restore  broken  conjugal 
relations  upon  terms  satisfactory  to  both  parties,  to  pro 
cure  marriage  licences,  to  advise  as  to  divorces,  to  aid 
in  the  erection  of  churches,  to  provide  for  the  burial  of 
the  dead,  to  give  counsel  in  the  thousand  and  one  mat 
ters  peculiar  to  the  plantation  Negro's  life,  whether 
whimsical  or  grave.  Every  plantation  Negro  expects  the 
discharge  of  these  functions  as  a  mere  matter  of  course. 
Yet  further,  when  in  more  serious  trouble,  he  looks  to 
the  white  man  as  to  a  friend,  and  appeals  to  him  as  to  a 
protector,  when  a  possible  term  in  jail  or  the  peniten 
tiary  looms  up  before  him,  and  lawyers  and  bail  are  to 
be  provided.  All  these  things  are  mere  incidents  to  the 
plantation  system,  the  commonplace  affairs  of  its  daily 
routine.  The  Negro  regards  them  as  his  due,  in  return 
for  the  proprietary  interest  and  pride  he  feels  in  the 
plantation  at  large,  his  sense  of  being  part  and  parcel 
of  a  large  institution,  and  the  certainty,  in  his  own 
mind,  that  he  himself  is  necessary  to  its  success.  Then, 
too,  there  is  his  never  failing  assurance  of  ability  to 
pay  his  account,  no  matter  how  large,  his  labour,  when 
it  is  not  too  wet  or  too  cold,  his  respect,  and  his  implicit, 
and  generally  cheerful,  obedience. 

The  one  thing  which  in  the  South,  directly  and  indi 
rectly,  has  been  the  source  of  the  gravest  trouble  be 
tween  the  races,  and  which  has  most  disastrously  worked 
their  separation,  has  been  the  crime  of  rape.  That  it 
should  lead  to  lynching  was  inevitable  ;  it  was  equally 
inevitable  that  in  time  the  same  mode  of  punishment 
would  be  extended  to  less  grave  offences. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta 


93 


At  the  April  meeting  of  the  American  Academy  of 
Political  and  Social  Science,  Dr.  George  T.  Winston,  of 
North  Carolina,  presented  a  most  sombre  picture  of 
existing  Southern  race  conditions.  He  said:  "The 
Southern  woman  with  her  helpless  little  children  in  the 
solitary  farm  house  no  longer  sleeps  secure  in  the  absence 
of  her  husband,  with  doors  unlocked  but  safely  guarded 
by  black  men  whose  lives  would  be  freely  given  in  her 
defence.  But  now,  when  a  knock  is  heard  at  the  door 
she  shudders  with  nameless  horror.  The  black  brute  is 
lurking  in  the  dark,  a  monstrous  beast,  crazed  with  lust. 
His  ferocity  is  almost  demoniacal.  A  mad  bull  or  a 
tiger  could  scarcely  be  more  brutal.  A  whole  commun 
ity  is  now  frenzied  with  horror,  with  blind  and  furious 
rage  for  vengeance.  A  stake  is  driven;  the  wretched 
brute,  covered  with  oil,  bruised  and  gashed,  beaten  and 
hacked  and  maimed,  amid  the  jeers  and  shouts  and 
curses,  the  tears  of  anger  and  of  joy,  the  prayers  and 
maledictions  of  thousands  of  civilised  people,  in  the 
sight  of  school-houses,  court-houses,  and  churches,  is 
burned  to  death.  ...  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  more  horrible  crimes  have  been  committed  by  the 
generation  of  Negroes  that  have  grown  up  in  the  South 
since  slavery  than  by  the  six  preceding  generations  in 
slavery.  And  also  that  the  worst  cruelties  of  slavery  all 
combined  for  two  centuries,  were  not  equal  to  the  savage 
barbarities  inflicted  in  retaliation  upon  the  Negroes  by 
the  whites  during  the  last  twenty  years."* 


*  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  Annals   18,  1901,  pp. 
108, 109. 


94       The  American  Race  Problem 

This  forbidding  picture  is  the  best  support  for  my 
contention  that  the  wisest  and  most  helpful  study  of 
this  combination  of  intricate  problems  is  from  the 
local  point  of  view  —  the  exhibition  of  conditions  as  pre 
sented  upon  particular  horizons.  From  contrasts  and 
comparisons  some  good  may  finally  be  realised.  To 
be  able  to  say  that  to  one  section  of  the  South,  at 
least,  this  picture  presents  not  one  familiar  feature, 
is  possibly  alone  enough  to  justify  my  presence  here. 
I  do  not  deny  that  this  is  a  true  statement  of  con 
ditions  in  many  sections  of  the  South.  I  know  too 
well  that  for  some  it  is  not  overdrawn.  I  do  not  even 
assert  that  it  is  not  more  nearly  typical  of  the  South  at 
large  than  is  my  own.  But  I  do  say  that  into  the 
minds  of  the  white  men  and  women  of  my  section, 
where  not  far  from  90  per  cent,  of  all  our  people  are 
black,  where  im  our  rural  districts  they  sometimes  out 
number  us  as  much  as  one  hundred  to  one,  the  thought 
of  the  possibility  of  rape  never  comes.  Nor  do  I  believe 
that  in  all  this  region  there  is  a  single  plantation  on 
which  may  not  be  found  Negroes  who  if  left  by  the 
owner  or  manager  in  charge  of  his  home  would  not  fail 
to  take  the  life  of  any  man,  white  or  black,  attempting 
violence.  They  would  know  what  was  expected  of 
them,  and  that  for  the  uttermost  discharge  of  that  duty 
net  one  hair  of  their  heads  would  be  harmed. 

What  is  the  cause  of  this  difference  between  geo 
graphic  divisions  of  a  common  country  ?  I  answer  that 
our  freedom  from  this  curse  is  merely  incidental  to  the 
general  relations  obtaining  between  the  races,  and  prop- 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta       95 

erly  ascribable  to  the  general  station  and  character  of 
the  white  population,  to  the  persistence  of  the  same 
relative  status  between  the  masses  of  the  two  races  that 
existed  when  the  one  was  master  and  the  other  slave. 
Then  the  Negro  was  bred  to  absolute  obedience,  made  to 
respect  the  white  race  because  it  was  white,  taught  that 
the  person,  even  the  name,  of  the  humblest  white  woman 
was  something  not  to  be  profaned  by  touch  or  word  or 
thought.  That  feeling  among  the  Negroes,  the  result  of 
this  training,  had  enough  vitality  to  project  itself 
through  the  Civil  War,  and  through  that  period  rendered 
safe  the  white  woman  who  in  the  absence  of  her  male 
protector  typified  in  herself  the  dominance  of  her  race. 
Through  the  influence  of  novel  conditions  in  the  pro 
cess  of  time  it  was  weakened  and  rape  began  to  add  its 
horrors  and  complications  to  the  race  problem.*  The 
influences  and  relations  and  peculiar  lines  of  contact 
which  wrought  in  the  Negro  that  mental  habit  are  po 
tent  to-day  in  the  Delta,  and  in  consequence  rape  is  a 
crime  we  do  not  fear.  I  believe  that  this  psychological 
habit  is  still  latently  persistent  in  the  Negro  masses, 
and  but  requires  contact  with  conditions  approaching 
those  which  produced  it  to  become  again  a  controlling 
force.  Thus  I  would  account  for  the  fact  that  in  a  Negro 
population  drawn  from  every  quarter  of  the  South  there 
is  absence  not  merely  of  the  crime  of  rape,  but  of  even 
the  slightest  disrespect  to  white  women. 

*  This  must  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  rape  was  entirely  unknown 
before  the  war.  It  became  more  common  after  1865,  and  its  commission  under 
the  later  conditions  exercised  an  influence  upon  race  relations  which  was  not 
possible  under  the  slavery  regime. 


96       The  American  Race  Problem 

The  peculiar  attitude  of  the  Negro  toward  those  upon 
an  equality  with  himself,  makes  possible  such  relations 
only  where  between  the  masses  of  the  two  races  there 
is  rigidly  maintained  the  status  of  superior  and  inferior. 
This  is  not  possible  where  a  large  white  labouring  class 
conies  into  contact  with  the  same  Negro  class. 

To  illustrate  my  general  proposition,  as  seen  from  the 
Negro's  own  standpoint,  I  may  cite  the  following:  In 
owning  and  operating  a  cotton  plantation  I  have  come 
into  relations  with  Negroes  from  all  sections  of  the  coun 
try,  and  have  had  fair  opportunities  for  observation. 
Before  the  abolition  of  the  system  I  was  for  a  time  a 
lessee  of  convicts  from  the  state  penitentiary.  Among 
the  prisoners  allotted  me  was  a  particularly  bright  and 
efficient  mulatto  of  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  He 
had  a  common  school  education,  and  was  apt  and  skil 
ful.  He  was  serving  a  sentence  for  an  attempted  crimi 
nal  assault  upon  a  seventeen-year-old  white  girl  in  a 
county  of  my  state  where  conditions  were  radically 
different  from  those  existing  with  us.  I  was  anxious  to 
know  how,  if  at  all,  he  accounted  for  his  crime,  but  he  was 
reluctant  to  discuss  it.  Finally  he  said  to  me:  "You 
don't  understand  —  things  over  here  are  so  different.  I 
hired  to  an  old  man  over  there  by  the  year.  He  had 
only  about  forty  acres  of  land,  and  he  and  his  folks  did 
all  their  own  work,  cooking,  washing,  and  everything.  I 
was  the  only  outside  hand  he  had.  His  daughter 
worked  right  alongside  of  me  in  the  field  every  day, 
for  three  or  four  months.  Finally  one  day,  when  no 
body  else  was  round,  hell  got  into  me  and  I  tried  to 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta       97 

rape  her.  But  you  folks  over  here  can't  understand  — 
things  are  so  different.  Over  here  a  nigger  is  a  nigger, 
and  a  white  man  is  a  white  man,  and  it  's  the  same  with 
the  women."  There  was  not  the  slightest  intimation 
of  accessory  guilt  on  the  girl's  part;  his  only  explana 
tion  of  his  act  was  that  "things  were  different."  There 
was  no  fault  upon  the  part  of  the  attempted  victim  of 
his  lust.  Her  only  crime  was  a  poverty  which  com 
pelled  her  to  do  work  which,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Negro,  was  reserved  as  the  natural  portion  of  his  own 
race,  and  the  doing  of  which  destroyed  the  relation 
which  otherwise  would  have  constituted  a  barrier  to  his 
brutality.* 

I  do  not  cite  this  as  a  typical  instance,  for  many  cases 
of  rape  occur  wherein  there  is  not  even  the  occasion  or 
opportunity  of  enforced  familiarity.  I  give  it  for  what 
it  is  worth,  as  the  expression  of  a  very  intelligent  Negro. 

If  my  theory  is  at  fault,  I  should  like  to  know  why  it 
is  that  a  Delta  Negro  never  assaults  a  white  woman, 
but  does  commit  rape  upon  the  women  of  his  own  race. 
This  section  while  containing  18.8  per  cent,  of  Missis 
sippi's  Negroes  now  furnishes  21.7  per  cent,  of  the  Negro 
population  of  the  state  prison.  Of  the  total  number  of 
convicts  from  the  Delta,  4.9  per  cent,  are  serving  sen 
tences  for  rape.  These  convictions  are  upon  present 
ments  to  grand  juries  solely  by  Negroes,  and  from  the 
circumstances  are  necessarily  had  solely  upon  Negro  tes 
timony.  It  is  a  difficult  crime  to  prove,  but  taking  no 


*  Possibly  I  have  not  emphasised  sufficiently  the  factor  of    opportunity 
for  assault  afforded  by  economic  contact  between  the  races. 


98       The  American  Race  Problem 

account  of  the  alleged  cases,  of  those  in  which  there 
seemed  to  the  grand  jury  insufficient  evidence  to  warrant 
an  indictment,  of  those  resulting  in  acquittals  on  the 
ground  of  consent,  and  of  those  which  never  came  to  the 
notice  of  the  law  at  all,  the  number  of  convictions  of 
Delta  Negroes  for  the  rape  or  attempted  rape  of  Negro 
women  during  the  past  four  years,  is  twelve.  In  1898, 
there  were  three  ;  one  in  the  following  year  ;  three  in 
1900;  and  in  1901,  to  September  3oth,  there  were  five. 
The  ages  of  those  committing  this  crime  range  from  six 
teen  to  fifty-four,  all  but  three  being  between  twenty 
and  thirty-one.  Some  of  these  assaults  upon  their  own 
women  have  been  committed  under  circumstances  as 
revolting  as  it  is  possible  for  the  human  mind  to  conceive. 
Returning  to  the  description  of  the  economic  condi 
tion  of  the  Negroes  in  my  neighbourhood  let  me  say  a 
word  as  to  one  of  the  most  discussed  features  of  the 
Negro's  life  in  the  South,  the  house  in  which  he  lives, 
In  the  towns,  where  the  Negro  rents  or  owns  his  home, 
it  is  whatever  his  ability  commands,  from  a  bare  shelter 
to  a  well-furnished  house  containing  four  to  six  rooms. 
[**  On  the  plantation  the  one-room  cabin,  that  bete  noire 
of  social  scientists,  is  not  in  evidence.  They  disap 
peared  many  years  ago.  Where  one  still  stands  it  is 
deserted  or  temporarily  occupied  by  cotton  pickers  or 
day  hands.  In  the  competition  for  labourers  a  steadily 
improving  class  of  plantation  houses  is  not  the  least  of 
the  inducements  offered.  If  a  family  lives  in  a  one- 
room  cabin,  it  is  a  matter  purely  of  choice;  there  are 
I  hundreds  of  a  different  kind  to  be  had. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta       99 

In  the  cultivation  of  cotton  we  have  in  the  Delta  | 
nearly  every  system  of  labour  to  be  found  in  the  South. 
They  are  roughly  divisible  into  two  classes,  the  more 
general  being  the  true  metayer,  or  some  modification  of 
it,  and  the  other  the  fixed  cash  rental.  Where  the 
Negro  does  not  own  the  soil  he  cultivates,  his  relation 
to  it  is  either  that  of  a  renter  or  a  cropper.  The  share 
system  presents  no  peculiar  features.  The  cropper  fur 
nishes  his  labour  in  planting,  cultivating,  and  gathering 
the  crop;  the  land  owner  furnishes  the  land,  the  team 
and  the  implements ;  and  the  crop  is  divided  equally  be 
tween  them.  The  planter  advances  to  the  cropper  such 
supplies  as  are  needed  during  the  year,  to  be  paid  for 
out  of  the  latter's  half  of  the  crop.  As  soon  as  a  quantity 
of  cotton  sufficient  to  pay  this  account  has  been  deliv 
ered  to  the  planter,  the  cropper  usually  receives  his 
portion  of  the  cotton,  to  be  disposed  of  as  he  sees  fit. 
The  extent  to  which  the  cropper  exercises  control  over 
his  cotton  varies  with  the  locality. 

The  features  of  land  renting  by  Negroes  vary  accord 
ing  to  the  nature  of  the  tenancy,  whether  the  land  is 
part  of  a  plantation  under  white  supervision,  or  a  small 
tract,  or  part  of  a  plantation  entirely  rented  by  a  non 
resident  landlord.  In  the  first  case  the  land  is  rented 
for  a  fixed  sum  per  acre,  varying  with  cotton  prices  and 
the  character  of  the  soil,  from  five  to  seven  dollars. 
Where  a  lint  rent  is  taken  it  varies  from  eighty  to  one 

***  i 

hundred  pounds.  Generally  speaking,  the  supervision 
over  a  renter  is  not  as  strict  as  that  over  a  cropper,  and 
as  soon  as  his  account  is  paid  his  cotton  is  at  his  own 


ioo      The  American  Race  Problem 

disposal.  More  privileges  and  a  larger  measure  of  inde 
pendence  are  considered  by  the  Negro  as  incident  to 
this  tenure,  and  as  he  becomes  the  owner  of  a  mule  it  is 
his  ambition  to  become  a  renter.  It  frequently  hap 
pens  that  a  planter  will  rent  a  mule  to  a  Negro  who  has 
nothing  at  all,  the  uniform  rent  being  twenty-five  dollars. 
Under  each  of  these  systems  certain  general  features 
obtain.  The  planter  takes  no  deed  of  trust,  for  the  state 
statutes  give  him  a  lien  on  the  crop  for  rent  and  sup 
plies.  Nor  is  it  usual  to  have  any  written  contract 
other  than  a  mere  memorandum.*  There  is  generally 
no  definite  understanding  as  to  the  amount  of  supplies 
to  be  advanced,  and  it  is  well  within  the  truth  to  say 
that  usually  the  planter  is  engaged  in  an  effort  to  keep 
the  Negro's  account  within  such  limits  as  will  make  it 
safe,  while  the  Negro  is  equally  anxious  to  obtain  as 
much  as  he  can  on  credit. 

The  Negro  discriminates  between  the  two  systems, 
yet  when  results  are  considered,  when  one  sees  him 
squander  from  year  to  year  the  proceeds  of  his  labour, 
however  obtained,  when  he  is  seen  to  move  restlessly 
and  aimlessly  from  place  to  place,  gathering  less  moss 
than  the  proverbial  rolling  stone,  it  must  appear  to  the 
close  observer  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  system  under 
which  he  works  makes  but  little  difference  in  his 
material  welfare. 

Where  the  Negro  rents  land  not  under  the  supervision 


*  Within  the  past  few  years  labour  conditions  have  grown  worse,  and  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  probably  90  per  cent,  of  the  plantation  labour  of  this  region  is 
now  under  written  contract.  Specific  agreements  as  to  supplies  are  also  now  the 
prevailing  rule. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      101 

of  plantation  management,  he  obtains  his  supplies  from 
a  merchant  or  cotton  factor.  Here  we  have  the  crop 
lien  system,  so  often,  so  earnestly,  and,  in  my  judgment, 
so  unjustly  inveighed  against.  What  the  Negro  obtains 
from  the  factor,  and  the  manner  of  his  getting  it,  depend 
largely  upon  himself.  Usually  his  advances  consist 
only  of  supplies,  furnished  him  monthly  or  weekly. 
The  only  money  advanced  is  such  as  the  contingen 
cies  of  cultivating  or  gathering  the  crop  make  neces 
sary.  The  Negro  is  dealt  with  just  as  his  established 
reputation  and  the  value  of  the  security  he  has  to  offer 
may  justify.  The  factor's  method  of  self  protection  is 
to  take  a  deed  of  trust  on  the  live  stock  and  prospective 
crop,  and  is  the  same  whether  the  applicant  be  a  two- 
mule  Negro  renter,  or  the  white  owner  of  a  thousand 
acres  of  land,  wanting  ten  thousand  dollars  of  advances. 
The  latter  attaches  his  signature  to  a  printed  trust  deed  • 
like  that  signed  by  the  former,  covering  his  mules  and 
crop  to  be  grown.  The  amount  advanced  is  governed 
by  the  character  of  the  individual  and  the  security. 
There  is,  however,  this  difference:  the  white  man  gets 
his  advances  in  cash,  available  at  stated  intervals,  while 
the  Negro  gets  the  most  of  his  in  the  shape  of  supplies.  , 
If,  however,  the  Negro  has  established  for  himself  a 
reputation  and  credit,  and  is  entitled  to  it  under  the 
standard  applying  to  the  white  man,  he  can  secure 
advances  in  the  same  manner.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  the  white  man  is  the  owner  of  only  two  mules,  he  gets 
his  just  as  does  the  Negro.  Of  Negroes  of  reputation 
and  credit  there  are  in  the  Delta  a  great  many;  of 


102 


The  American  Race  Problem 


white  men  without  property  there  are,  fortunately  for 
all  concerned,  extremely  few.  It  is  a  matter  of  credit, 
and  not  of  race. 

Nor  is  the  business  custom  which  thus  discriminates 
an  arbitrary  one.  Experience  has  taught  no  lesson 
more  severely  than  that  the  average  Negro  will  throw 
away  —  and  I  use  the  expression  advisedly  —  whatever 
money  comes  into  his  hands.  If  he  would  refrain  from 
this  practice  for  a  few  generations,  he  could  own  from 
top  to  bottom  and  from  side  to  side  the  section  in  which 
I  live.  Even  where  money  is  furnished  the  ordinary 
Negro,  it  has  to  be  done  most  carefully;  for  experience 
with  padded  pay-rolls  and  cotton  that  failed  to  make 
in  the  bale  what  the  figures  promised  in  the  picking 
is  so  common  as  to  excite  no  comment.  Aside,  how 
ever,  from  any  consideration  of  honesty,  the  number 
of  Negroes  who  will  not  squander  and  utterly  mis 
apply  funds  coming  into  their  hands  —  whether  received 
under  a  solemn  obligation  to  use  them  in  making  good 
the  security  pledged,  a  growing  crop,  or  as  the  result  of 
twelve  months  of  toil  —  is  so  small  that  considerations 
of  common  business  necessity  dictate  the  course  pur 
sued.  The  Negroes  who  are  independent  renters  sup 
plying  themselves,  or  land  owners,  constitute  practically 
the  small  thrifty  class. 

As  to  the  crop  lien  system,  per  se,  I  regard  it  as  dis 
tinctly  the  poor  man's  opportunity.  Under  it  a  Negro 
who  is  honest  —  honest  with  himself  in  his  work,  and 
honest  with  those  with  whom  he  deals  —  who  does  not 
waste  his  money  on  excursions,  picnics,  crap  games, 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      103 

whiskey,  women,  and  pinchbeck  jewelry,  can  out  of 
this  soil  easily  and  quickly  become  an  independent  man. 
The  proposition  appears  too  simple  to  argue.  Familiar 
with  the  capabilities  of  the  soil,  the  cotton  factor  knows 
that  it  alone  can  be  made  to  repay  what  he  advances  on 
its  cultivation.  Upon  the  security  of  a  lien  upon  what  it 
shall  produce  he  is  willing  to  make  possible  its  cultiva 
tion  by  one  who  would  otherwise  be  unable  to  obtain 
advances.  I  believe  the  figures  submitted  below  will 
demonstrate  that  the  Delta  Negro,  by  the  exercise  of 
common  thrift  and  economy,  can  become  independent 
as  the  result  of  two  or  three  years'  labour.  But  so  long 
as  he  wastes  his  money  and  opportunities,  as  is  now  his 
too  common  habit,  the  particular  system  under  which 
he  accomplishes  these  barren  results  need  occasion  econ 
omists  and  himself  but  little  concern.  Because  better 
results  are  not  more  visible  in  the  way  of  a  greater  ap 
parent  Negro  prosperity,  we  sometimes  hear  it  asserted 
that  even  here  the  black  man  is  denied  opportunities  for 
his  betterment.  This  is  a  superficial  observation,  based 
upon  the  conditions  resulting  from  a  failure  of  proper 
achievement,  rather  than  from  the  absence  of  oppor 
tunity. 

One  of  the  greatest  factors  in  our  demand  for  Negroes 
is  the  necessity  of  securing  each  year  a  great  number  of 
extra  cotton  pickers.  It  is  an  axiomatic  proposition 
with  us  that  no  Negro  family  will  pick  the  cotton  which 
it  will  raise.  Not  that  it  cannot  be  done;  on  the  con 
trary  in  an  average  year,  and  by  the  exercise  of  due  dili 
gence,  it  can;  but  it  will  not.  In  order  to  save  the  crop 


104     The  American  Race  Problem 

I  it  is  necessary  to  employ  additional  pickers.  The  size 
of  the  stalk  and  the  great  number  of  bolls  make  cotton 
picking  on  alluvial  land  very  easy  work;  the  utter  dis 
regard,  by  planter  and  tenant  alike,  of  the  true  economy 
of  the  situation  makes  it  a  lucrative  employment.  Pick 
ing  is  paid  for  without  much  regard  to  the  price  which 
cotton  commands.  Whether  it  be  worth  ten  cents  per 
pound  or  six,  the  price  of  picking  remains  very  near  to 
fifty  cents  per  hundred  pounds  of  seed  cotton.  During 
the  fall  months  a  good  picker  can  easily  average  two 
hundred  pounds,  while  many  can  pick  as  much  as  three 
hundred  and  fifty  per  day.  One  of  the  most  difficult 
matters  of  plantation  management  is  to  get  the  tenant 
to  act  upon  the  proposition  that  every  hundred  pounds 
of  cotton  picked  by  himself  means  a  saving  to  him  of 
the  cost  of  picking.  The  opening  of  each  season  finds 
most  of  them  clamorous  for  extra  pickers. 

To  supply  this  autumnal  demand  for  labour  the  towns 
empty  themselves  of  great  numbers  of  their  Negro  popu 
lation.  The  vagrant  leaves  for  a  season  his  accustomed 
haunts,  the  crap  shooter  and  "rounder,"  in  fewer  num 
bers,  betake  themselves  to  the  country  to  earn  easily  a 
few  unfamiliarly  honest  dollars,  and  to  ply  their  voca 
tion  among  their  rural  friends,  the  cooks  and  wash 
women  desert  their  regular  callings  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  make  the  season  a  time  of  dread  for  urban  house 
keepers.  Yet  this  source  of  labour  is  soon  exhausted,  and 
the  business  of  securing  pickers  from  towns  outside  this 
section  and  from  other  states  and  other  parts  of  Missis 
sippi  is  regularly  pursued  by  a  number  of  Negro  "agents." 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      105 

Of  the  great  number  of  Negroes  thus  brought  yearly 
into  the  Delta,  many  remain  to  make  crops  themselves, 
attracted  by  the  superior  growth  of  cotton,  and  the 
display  of  money  always  incident  to  the  season.  I 
have  seen  more  than  a  thousand  dollars  in  silver  paid 
out  of  a  plantation  office  on  Saturday  night  for  extra 
picking  alone,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  curious,  eager 
throng,  coming  from  sections  in  which  such  a  thing  as 
a  handful  of  Negroes  handling  so  much  cash  as  the 
result  of  one  week's  plantation  work  would  seem  almost 
incredible.  Such  things  taken  with  the  novel  sur 
roundings,  the  large  talk  of  Negroes  making  more  cotton 
and  handling  more  money  than  many  white  farmers 
elsewhere,  the  scale  on  which  affairs  are  carried  on, 
such  as  the  measuring  and  selling  of  cotton  seed  by 
Negroes  by  the  ton  instead  of  the  bushel,  the  evidences 
of  plenty  and  to  spare  furnished  by  the  spendthrifts 
around  them  —  for  the  Delta  Negro,  especially  when 
in  the  presence  of  his  brother  from  some  less  favoured 
section,  is  as  free  a  spender  as  the  world  affords  —  all 
this  tends  to  fire  the  stranger  with  a  desire  to  come 
into  this  land  of  plenty.  It  is  thus  that  much  of  our 
labour  is  recruited,  and  some  of  it  the  best  we 
have,  especially  during  the  first  two  or  three  years  of 
residence. 

So  far  as  I  can  judge  the  Delta  Negro  presents  no 
peculiar  social  phenomena.  His  life  is  the  same  which 
the  race  leads  in  sections  where  its  material  opportuni 
ties  are  not  so  great.  The  only  difference  I  can  observe 
is  that  there  may  be  a  greater  tendency  among  them- 


io6     The  American  Race  Problem 

selves  to  the  commission  of  crimes  against  the  person. 
For  purposes  of  comparison,  I  have  taken  the  Negroes 
of  a  group  composed  of  the  nine  counties  of  Mississippi 
where  they  are  most  largely  outnumbered  by  the  whites. 
To  this  group,  for  convenience  I  shall  apply  the  local 
designation,  "Hill"  counties.  In  this  group  the  propor 
tion  of  whites  to  blacks  is  more  than  4  to  i,  as  against 
a  reverse  proportion  of  more  than  7  to  i  in  the  Delta 
group.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  latter  the  Negroes 
constitute  18.8  per  cent,  of  the  total  Negro  population 
of  the  state;  in  the  Hill  group  they  constitute  but  2.6 
per  cent.  We  have  seen  that  the  Delta  furnishes  21.7 
per  cent,  of  the  Negro  state  prison  population ;  the  Hills 
contribute  3.4  per  cent.  A  comparison  of  the  crimes 
of  the  two  groups  discloses  the  fact  that  50.1  per  cent, 
of  those  in  the  Hills,  and  only  19.3  per  cent,  of  those  in 
the  Delta,  are  burglaries,  larcenies,  forgeries  and,  arsons. 
Crimes  against  the  person  make  up  80.7  per  cent,  of  the 
offences  of  Delta  Negroes,  and  49.9  per  cent,  of  those 
in  the  Hills.  It  may  seem  somewhat  singular  that  rape 
constitutes  6.2  per  cent,  of  the  graver  crimes  of  the  Hill 
Negroes,  while,  as  has  been  shown,  4.9  are  the  figures 
for  the  Delta.  It  is  in  the  crimes  of  murder,  manslaugh 
ter,  and  attempts  to  kill  that  the  Delta  Negro  exhibits 
his  criminal  propensity  most  strongly.  These  compose 
75.8  per  cent,  of  all  of  their  felonies,  and  43.7  per  cent, 
of  those  of  the  Hill  Negro.  In  the  two  crimes  of  larceny 
and  burglary  the  Hill  district  is  far  ahead  of  the  other 
section,  the  percentage  of  total  felonies  being  respec 
tively  40.6  and  15.2. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      107 

In  the  lower  class  of  Negroes  a  predilection  for  petty 
gambling  amounts  almost  to  a  passion.  Their  oppor 
tunity  of  indulging  it  depends  upon  their  command  of 
ready  money.  A  majority  of  the  murders  committed 
in  this  section  arise  out  of  gambling.  Therefore,  I 
would  attribute  the  difference  in  the  relative  number  of 
homicidal  crimes  committed  by  the  Negro  in  the  two 
sections  to  the  Delta  Negro's  greater  command  of  money. 
Anyone  who  has  witnessed  a  genuine  crap  game, 
played  as  only  the  Negro  can  play  it,  has  no  difficulty 
whatever  in  understanding  how  easy  it  is  for  human 
life  to  be  taken  in  a  dispute  arising  over  the  most  trivial 
sum.  It  is  an  entirely  conservative  statement  to  say 
that  on  or  near  every  Delta  plantation  may  be  found 
from  one  to  four  regularly  patronised  crap  tables,  while 
in  every  town  and  village  from  one  to  a  half-dozen 
Negro  crap  dives  are  run.  Around  these  tables,  especi 
ally  on  Saturday  nights  and  Sundays,  gather  crowds  of 
men  and  boys  of  all  ages,  scarcely  one  in  five  without 
a  knife  or  pistol.  It  takes  but  a  word  to  bring  one 
or  both  into  the  game.  Making  no  attempt  to  esti 
mate  the  number  of  such  affrays  in  which  both  parties 
are  killed,  and  no  trial  possible,  and  not  reckoning  the 
number  of  killings  in  which  the  surviving  party  escapes, 
is  acquitted  by  a  jury,  or  hanged,  there  are  now*  in  the 
penitentiary  from  this  section  alone  no  less  than 
154  Negroes  serving  sentences  for  taking,  or  attempting 
to  take,  human  life.  In  the  courts  of  this  group  of  coun 
ties  there  were  for  these  crimes  in  1898  thirty-three 

*  September  30,  IQOI. 


io8     The  American  Race  Problem 

convictions  ;  in  1899,  twenty-nine  ;  in  1900,  thirty- 
three;  in  1901,  to  September  3oth,  thirty-seven. 

It  would  be  idle  to  discuss  such  a  matter  as  the  sexual 
looseness  which  marks  the  conditions  obtaining  among 
the  masses  of  these  people.  No  new  light  could  be 
thrown  upon  it,  and  no  good  accomplished  thereby. 
It  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  the  marriage  contract 
possesses  for  them  little,  if  any,  sanctity.  This  may 
seem  a  hard  saying,  but  no  man  acquainted  with  the 
facts  will  deny  its  truth. 

In  discussions  of  the  Negro  we  have  been  repeatedly 
told  of  late  years  that  the  race  should  be  judged  by  its 
best  element,  and  not  by  its  worst,  and  that  statistics  of 
criminality  were  an  unfair  index  to  Negro  conditions. 
That  it  is  unfair  to  base  opinions  and  conclusions  upon 
partial  investigations  is  true.  But  it  is  equally  true  that 
we  cannot  form  just  estimates  by  considering  only  the 
few  who  have  risen  superior  to  general  environments 
and  are  confessedly  exceptional.  The  only  true  index  to 
the  life  of  a  people  is  furnished  by  a  study  of  its  masses 
—  its  great  general  class.  It  is  with  this  mass  in  my 
section  that  I  am  dealing,  and  my  statements  would  lose 
none  of  their  force  or  truth  by  being  met  with  the 
counterclaim  that  there  are  Negroes  here  who  lead 
decent,  respectable  lives.  No  race  as  a  race  can  rise 
superior  to  the  condition  of  its  average  family  unit,  and 
it  is  the  disregard  of  the  marriage  relation,  the  brutality 
of  husbands  to  their  wives  and  of  both  to  their  children, 
which  will  probably  for  a  long  while  most  impress  the 
student  of  the  Negro  masses,  rather  than  the  fact  that 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta 


109 


here  and  there  may  be  found  families  and  individuals 
who  have  adopted  for  themselves  standards  obtaining 
generally  among  another  people. 

One  of  the  traits  which  militates  most  against  the 
Negro  here  is  his  unreliability.  Given  certain  condi 
tions  one  may  reason  to  fairly  certain  conclusions  regard 
ing  a  white  man.  It  is  not  so  with  the  Negro.  He 
presents  a  bundle  of  hopelessly  unintelligible  contra 
dictions.  Take  his  migratory  habit,  for  instance,  as 
one  manifestation  of  his  characteristic  unreliability. 
The  desire  to  move  from  place  to  place,  the  absence  of 
local  attachment,  seems  to  be  a  governing  trait  in  the 
Negro  character,  and  a  most  unfortunate  one  for  the 
race.  It  has  led  to  the  fixed  conviction  on  the  part  of 
many  people  having  constant  business  relations  with 
him  that  in  this  respect  the  Negro  cannot  be  depended 
upon  at  all,  and  that  the  treatment  he  receives  has  but 
little  real  effect  in  shaping  his  course.  It  is  undeniable 
that  there  is  abundant  ground  for  the  most  extreme  opin 
ion.  His  mental  processes  are  past  finding  out,  and  he 
cannot  be  counted  on  to  do  or  not  to  do  a  given  thing 
under  given  circumstances.  There  is  scarcely  a  planter"! 
in  all  this  territory  who  would  not  gladly  make  substan 
tial  concessions  for  an  assured  tenantry.  I  do  not  mean 
for  Negroes  who  would  stay  with  him  always,  and  never 
take  advantage  of  an  opportunity  for  genuine  better 
ment,  but  merely  for  such  as  would  remain  with  him 
only  so  long  as  they  were  willing  to  work  at  all  under 
the  same  conditions,  and  should  receive  honest  and 
considerate  treatment  at  his  hands.  Yet  no  planter 


no     The  American  Race  Problem 

among  us  can  tell  how  many  or  which  of  his  tenants  of 
jtp-day  will  be  his  tenants  of  another  year. 

Not  all  Negroes  can  become  landed  proprietors,  any 
more  than  all  mill  operatives  can  become  mill  owners, 
or  all  wage  earners  capitalists.  It  is  inevitable  that 
there  must  always  be  a  large  class  of  Negro  tillers  of 
other  men's  soils,  corresponding  to  relative  classes 
among  all  the  races  of  mankind.  It  is  then  manifestly 
to  the  interest  of  these  that  they  should  seek  for  them 
selves  conditions  as  nearly  as  possible  approaching  actual 
land  ownership  —  a  fixed  tenure,  and  the  comforts  of  a 
home.  This  status  need  not  mark  the  limit  of  advance 
ment  of  all  those  entering  it;  it  would  but  afford  a  step 
ping  stone  to  such  as  proved  themselves  capable  of  turn 
ing  good  conditions  into  better.  In  all  that  I  have  said 
I  would  not  be  understood  as  claiming  that  motives  of 
self-interest  do  not  operate  with  the  Negro  at  all;  I 
simply  and  emphatically  assert  that  they  do  not  at  all 
intelligently  control  him. 

The  Negroes  in  the  Delta  not  only  make  in  the  aggre 
gate  a  tremendous  amount  of  money,  but  they  squander 
more  than  any  similar  class  of  people  of  whom  I  have 
any  knowledge.  There  is  no  way  of  computing  the 
amount  expended  by  them  in  railway  travel  alone,  but 
it  is  an  enormous  sum.  This  travel  is  for  the  most  part 
entirely  aimless,  and  it  is  a  common  thing  for  a  Negro 
to  take  a  trip  from  a  plantation  to  a  town  fifteen  miles 
distant,  with  bare  train  fare  in  his  pocket,  and  a  crop 
badly  in  need  of  his  attention  at  home.  On  Saturdays 
field  work  is  practically  suspended  and  the  day  is  usually 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      1 1 1 

given  up  to  such  aimless  moving  about,  or  to  assembling 
around  stations  and  stores  to  witness  the  arrivals  and 
departures  of  others. 

The  greatest  diversions  of  these  people,  however,  are 
excursions  and  the  circus.  The  former  come  at  irregu 
lar  intervals,  from  four  to  six  times  a  year,  and  mean 
trips  of  from  eighty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  The 
money  spent  on  this  form  of  amusement  is  nothing  in 
amount  to  the  annual  tribute  poured  into  the  coffers  of 
the  circus.  In  the  months  of  October  and  November, 
1901,  two  of  the  largest  of  these  concerns  now  exhibiting 
gave  a  total  of  ten  performances  in  the  Delta.  Making  a 
careful  and  conservative  estimate  of  the  amounts  spent 
on  the  three  items  of  railroad  fare,  incidentals,  and  ad 
missions,  the  sum  total  could  not  have  been  under 
$50,000.* 

Among  our  Negroes  we  have  few  drunkards,  and  but 
few  who  do  not  drink;  nor  is  the  drinking  by  any  means 
confined  to  the  men.  Considering  the  prevalence  of  the 
habit,  the  only  surprising  feature  is  that  so  few  drunk 
ards  should  be  found. 

The  line  of  demarcation  between  rural  and  urban  life 
is  so  indistinct,  and  persons  pass  so  constantly  from  one 
to  the  other,  that  there  is  not  much  difference  between 
the  Negroes  of  the  town  and  those  of  the  country.  In 
each  place  we  find  the  good,  the  bad,  and  the  indifferent. 
As  in  the  country  we  have  the  moving,  shiftless  ele 
ment,  so  do  we  also  have  the  shiftless  Negro  of  the 
town;  as  in  the  one  place  we  have  the  land  owner  or 

*  It  was  in  fact  close  to  $75,000, 


H2     The  American  Race  Problem 

prosperous  tenant,  so  in  the  other  we  have  the  man  who 
owns  his  home,  and  has  steady  employment  at  excellent 
wages;  the  "rounder,"  the  pistol  carrier,  and  the  pro 
fessional  crap  shooter  alike  infest  each.  Throughout 
the  Delta  there  are  Negroes  filling  places  of  responsibility 
and  trust.  In  the  country  the  gin  crews  and  engineers 
are  practically  all  Negroes,  and  there  are  Negro  fore 
men,  agents,  and  sub-managers.  There  are  many  con 
stables,  and  there  is  in  my  county  a  Negro  justice  of 
the  peace.  In  my  own  town  every  mail  carrier  is  a 
Negro  and  we  have  a  Negro  on  the  police  force.  Some 
are  employed  by  cotton  factors  and  buyers,  and  earn 
from  $600  to  $1,000  per  annum.  Others  are  em 
ployees  of  electric  light  companies,  some  are  telephone 
linemen,  and  some  are  engaged  in  merchandising. 
Wages  paid  in  the  country  range  from  50  cents  to  75  cents 
_jper  day  for  common  hands,  and  from  $i  to  $1.25  and 
$1.50  for  gin  crews.  In  levee  work  the  commonest 
labourers  receive  $i  per  day,  and  the  more  skilled  $1.50. 
In  towns  the  wages  vary  greatly.  Hands  in  oil  mills 
and  compresses  are  paid  from  $i  to  $2  per  day,  while 
the  wages  and  earnings  of  porters,  hackmen,  dray 
drivers,  teamsters,  etc.,  range  from  $10  to  $60  per  month. 
Mississippi  makes  no  separate  assessment  of  the  prop 
erty  of  the  two  races,  and  it  is  therefore  impossible  to 
arrive  at  the  value  of  the  property  owned  by  the  Negro 
in  the  Delta.  The  best  that  can  be  done  is  to  estimate 
it.  In  1900  the  total  assessed  value  of  all  the  property 
in  this  group  of  counties  was  $29,095,167.  Of  this 
amount  railroad  property  constituted  $5,396,008,  leav- 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      113 

ing  a  balance  for  realty  and  personalty  of  $23,699,159. 
Without  going  into  the  methods  employed  in  reaching 
the  result,  I  conclude  that  a  conservative  estimate  of 
the  value  of  Negro  holdings  would  be,  in  round  figures, 
not  less  than  $1,000,000.  This  is  probably  encum 
bered  to  the  extent  of  one-half  its  value.  I  give  this 
estimate  as  a  minimum  figure,  and  the  correct  value 
may  be  much  greater.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  judge  the 
extent  of  the  increase  in  Negro  property,  but  it  is  con 
siderable,  though  by  no  means  in  keeping  with  the 
opportunities  of  the  race.  But  even  now  one  cannot 
travel  through  this  section  without  observing  Negro  land 
owners  everywhere.  They  are  scattered  over  its  entire 
area,  holding  tracts  varying  in  size  from  a  town  lot  to 
more  than  a  thousand  acres.* 

In  considering  the  Negro's  condition  and  opportuni 
ties  here,  three  factors  assume  important  proportions. 
The  amicable  relations  between  the  races,  the  peculiarly 
fertile  soil  —  the  absence  of  the  necessity  for  fertilisers 
alone  meaning  a  great  deal  —  and  the  superior  quality 
of  the  cotton  produced.  Of  race  relations  enough  has 
been  said  ;  of  the  soil  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  it  needs 
no  fertilisation.  It  has  often  been  the  occasion  of 
curiosity  to  me  to  know  what  became  of  the  fertiliser 
shown  by  the  eleventh  census  to  have  been  purchased 
by  these  counties.  The  amount  expended  is  stated  to 
have  been  only  $12,472  it  is  true,  with  a  value  of  farms 
and  products  of  $16,771,090,  but  I  have  always  doubted 

*  The  bulk  of  this  property  is  held  by  mulattoes,  the  larger  tracts  almost 
without  exception  being  in  their  hands. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


ii4     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  accuracy  of  even  these  figures.  Commercial  fer 
tiliser  is  an  article  unknown  to  us,  and  not  handled  by 
our  dealers  in  plantation  supplies.* 

The  figures  of  the  last  census  showing  the  compara 
tive  cotton  acreage  yield  of  this  section,  the  state,  and 
the  South,  are  not  available,f  but  it  is  not  likely  that 
much  variation  will  be  shown  from  those  of  the  eleventh. 
These  exhibit  an  average  yield  per  acre  of  lint  cotton 
for  the  South  of  176.67  pounds,  and  for  the  state  of  Mis 
sissippi  of  191.03  pounds.  The  yield  of  this  county 
group  was  257.87  pounds.  It  is  only  fair  to  state  that 
the  average  of  the  state  was  increased  by  that  of  coun 
ties  lying  partly  in  the  Delta,  but  which,  as  explained 
above,  have  not  been  included  here.  While  for  a  given 
year  we  have  this  average,  the  standard  yield  is  with 
us  500  pounds,  and  large  areas  will  show  a  yield  ranging 
between  this  and  400  pounds. 

The  cotton  grown  on  this  soil  is  much  superior,  both 
in  the  quality  of  its  fibre  and  the  length  of  its  staple,  to 
upland  varieties.  Taking  its  name  from  the  fact  of  its 
growth  in  the  bends  of  the  Mississippi  River  at  a  time 
when  it  found  its  way  to  the  port  of  New  Orelans  by 
means  of  boats  plying  that  stream,  it  is  known  to  the 
Liverpool,  New  Orleans,  and  Eastern  markets  as  "bend 
ers,"  and  commands  a  substantial  though  fluctuating 
premium  over  "uplands." 

In  conclusion  I  shall  submit  some  of  the  features 
and  results  of  a  personal  experiment  with  Negro  labour, 

*  Notwithstanding  this  natural  fertility,  I  am  now  convinced  that  excellent 
results  would  follow  the  general  use  of  proper  fertilisers  here, 
t  September,  1901. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      115 

carried  on  under  conditions  differing  somewhat  from 
those  generally  obtaining.  Several  years'  experience  in 
cotton  planting  led  to  certain  conclusions  relative  to  the 
usual  manner  of  handling  plantation  labour.  I  became  ^ 
convinced  of  one  thing,  that  too  much  latitude  was  al 
lowed  the  Negro  in  the  matter  of  his  account  and  in  the 
handling  of  his  crop.  Observation  and  experience  sat 
isfied  me  that  better  results  could  be  obtained  for  both 
the  Negro  and  the  planter  by  requiring  the  former  to 
conform  more  strictly  to  business  rules,  and  by  making 
the  relations  between  the  two,  in  crop  and  money 
matters,  more  nearly  of  a  purely  business  character.  I  j 
also  entertained  the  belief,  not  yet  entirely  dissipated,* 
that  a  reliable,  industrious,  and  largely  self-sustaining, 
plantation  tenantry  could  be  built  up  by  effort  along 
proper  lines,  coupled  with  a  degree  of  liberality  at  the 
outset  not  entirely  consistent  with  the  general  purpose 
of  putting  the  Negro  on  a  strictly  business  footing. 

Even  casual  observation  will  show  that  the  greatest 
opportunity  enjoyed  by  the  Negro  for  acquiring  property 
is  as  a  renter.  It  was  determined,  therefore,  to  adopt 
the  rent  system.  The  greatest  objection  to  it  is  that, 
as  it  ordinarily  obtains,  it  allows  the  Negro  privileges 
which  he  too  often  abuses.  He  does  not  take  kindly 
to  suggestion  or  direction  as  to  what  he  shall  plant,  and 
wants  to  put  practically  all  his  land  in  cotton  because 
it  is  a  cash  crop;  he  thinks  he  should  be  left  free  to 
work  his  crop  when  and  as  he  pleases,  which  means 

*  See  the  following  paper,  "A  Plantation  Experiment."  For  convenience 
of  narration,  the  above  is  expressed  in  the  first  person,  while  in  fact  the  experi 
ment  described  was  the  joint  effort  of  my  partner,  Mr.  Julian  H.  Fort,  and  myself. 


n6     The  American  Race  Problem 

frequently  neglect,  and  oftener  improper  cultivation; 
having  control  of  mules,  he  thinks  that  he  should  enjoy 
the  privileges  of  riding  them  about  the  country,  when 
both  he  and  they  should  be  at  work,  and  of  neglecting 
and  poorly  feeding  them,  if  he  so  elect;  in  short,  that 
he  should  enjoy  various  privileges  and  immunities  which 
it  is  impossible  to  recite,  but  which  are  usually  accorded 
by  the  custom  of  the  country.  These  things  mean  that 
the  Negro  as  a  renter  is  generally  undesirable,  often 
troublesome,  and  that  his  cultivation  of  land  causes 
deterioration.  To  rent  and  yet  avoid  the  difficulties 
ordinarily  incident  to  the  system  was  a  problem  solved  by 
the  use  of  a  contract  specifying  in  detail  what  was  under 
taken  by  each  party,  and  reserving  to  the  plantation 
management  absolute  control  over  all  plantation  affairs. 
There  is  generally  a  great  disproportion  between  the 
Negro's  ideas  and  his  ability  of  execution;  he  wants  to 
plant  on  as  large  a  scale  as  possible,  and  will  usually 
"overcrop"  himself,  undertake  more  land  than  he  can 
cultivate,  leading  to  the  neglect  of  some  or  all  of  it. 
It  was  accordingly  determined  to  allot  to  each  family 
only  so  much  as  it  could  cultivate  thoroughly  under  all 
ordinary  contingencies,  believing  that  not  only  more 
money,  but  an  actually  greater  yield  could  be  had  by 
the  tenant  from  twenty  acres  well  handled  than  from 
twenty-five  half  neglected.  Mules  and  implements 
were  sold  at  reasonable  prices  and  on  two  years'  time, 
one-half  the  purchase  price  payable  annually.  For 
handling  the  crop  to  the  best  advantage,  as  regards 
economy  and  grade,  a  thoroughly  equipped  gin  plant 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      117 

was  substituted  for  a  less  modern  one,  and  as  a  means 
of  lessening  the  cost  of  living  to  the  tenant,  and  of  en 
couraging  the  raising  of  corn,  it  was  provided  with  a 
mill  capable  of  making  an  excellent  quality  of  meal, 
far  more  nutritious  than  the  purchased,  kiln- dried  ar 
ticle.  The  latter  is  operated  once  a  week,  the  grinding 
being  done  for  toll  only,  a  bushel  of  meal  being  exchanged 
for  a  bushel  of  shelled  corn.  It  may  be  remarked  that 
during  the  three  years  of  its  operation  there  has  been 
a  marked  increase  in  the  demand  for  its  services  among 
the  Negroes  of  the  neighbourhood,  many  coming  to  it 
from  distances  of  five  and  seven  miles.  Exercising  the 
contract  right  of  requiring  the  planting  of  as  much  corn 
as  was  deemed  expedient,  it  was  agreed,  in  return,  that 
all  surplus  corn  raised  by  the  tenant  would  be  taken  off 
his  hands  at  the  market  price. 

In  the  accomplishment  of  the  general  objects  in  view, 
it  was  of  as  much  interest  to  the  plantation  as  to  the 
tenant  that  the  best  possible  price  be  realised  for  the 
latter's  cotton.  For  this  and  other  reasons  the  privi 
lege  of  absolutely  controlling  his  crop  was  denied  him. 
This  was  clearly  stipulated  in  his  contract,  but  he  was 
not  denied  all  voice  in  its  disposition.  He  could  sell  it 
to  the  plantation,  if  a  mutually  satisfactory  price  could 
be  agreed  upon,  or  he  could  let  it  go  forward  with  the 
general  crop,  and  have  an  accounting  for  its  proceeds. 
One  of  the  essentials  to  successful  cotton  growing  here 
is  thorough  drainage.  With  this  the  tenant  has  nothing 
to  do,  it  being  stipulated  that  the  land  is  to  be  kept  well 
drained  without  cost  to  him. 


n8     The  American  Race  Problem 

Believing  that  not  only  is  the  labourer  entitled  to 
proper  shelter,  but  that  comfortable  homes  are  a  matter 
of  plantation  economy,  these  tenants  are  furnished  ex 
cellently  constructed  houses,  well  lighted  and  heated. 
Each  house  has  its  driven  well,  kept  in  repair  as  an 
item  of  plantation  expense.  These  houses,  with  the 
exception  of  some  of  three  and  four  rooms,  contain  two 
rooms  each,  and  are  constructed  with  a  view  to  accom 
modating  a  family  working  eighteen  acres  of  land,  that 
being  the  amount,  per  average  family,  from  which  the 
best  results  are  found  to  be  obtainable.*  It  has  been  de 
termined,  however,  in  order  to  avoid  any  possibility  of 
crowding,  to  add  a  third  room  to  each  of  these  houses. 
This  is  now  being  done,  and  within  a  year  there  will  be 
no  two-room  houses  remaining.  Every  effort  is  made 
to  encourage  tenants  to  raise  gardens,  and  to  own  cattle 
and  hogs,  abundant  pasturage  being  provided  free. 
The  proper  care  of  live  stock  is  rendered  compulsory 
by  close  supervision. 

To  reduce  the  matter  of  advancing  supplies  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  a  business  system,  a  furnishing  basis  of 
50  cents  per  acre,  per  month,  for  supplies  only,  was 
fixed  upon.  Incidentals  usually  require  about  25  cents 
per  acre  additional.  Each  month  the  tenant  is  fur 
nished  a  coupon  book  for  the  amount,  in  money,  of 
his  supplies,  a  twenty-acre  family  receiving  a  $10  book, 
thirty  acres  securing  one  of  $15,  and  so  forth.  These 
books  are  good  only  for  supplies,  such  as  meat,  meal, 


*In  the  light  of  the  seven  years'  experience  since  the   above   was   written 
our  firm,  Stone  &  Fort,  is  now  reducing  this  to  fifteen  acres  per  family. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      119 

tobacco,  snuff,  and  molasses,  but  it  is  agreed  with  the 
tenant  that  such  coupons  as  he  may  have  left  in  his  book 
at  the  expiration  of  each  month  will  be  honoured  for 
whatever  he  wants.  This  is  done  with  a  view  to  encour 
aging  economy,  and  to  enable  him  to  secure  "extras" 
without  increasing  his  account.  Getting  their  meal 
without  cost,  by  grinding  corn,  and  getting  flour  in  its 
stead  out  of  their  books,  none  of  those  who  were  on  the 
plantation  last  year  failed  this  year  to  secure  with  sur 
plus  coupons  an  abundance  of  sugar,  coffee,  rice,  etc., 
at  the  end  of  each  month  to  carry  them  through  the 
following.  This  system  possesses  several  advantages, 
not  the  least  of  which  are  that  it  saves  the  making  of 
numerous  small  ledger  entries,  and  enables  the  tenant 
to  tell  at  any  time  during  the  month,  from  his  unused 
coupons,  the  exact  amount  he  has  left  to  his  credit,  so 
that  he  may  govern  himself  accordingly.  The  Negroes 
regard  the  system  with  the  utmost  satisfaction,  and 
would  not  exchange  it  for  the  usual  method  of  "issuing 
rations." 

To  make  a  success  of  the  system  outlined  here,  three 
things  were  absolutely  necessary:  the  utmost  patience 
and  good  sense  at  the  office,  wise  management  in  the 
field,  and  discrimination  in  selecting  tenants.  Every 
Negro  known  to  be  a  professional  crap  shooter  or  pis 
tol  carrier  was  run  off  the  place,  all  families  known  to 
be  quarrelsome  and  troublesome  were  got  rid  of,  and 
everybody  whom  it  was  necessary  to  compel  to  work  was 
let  go.  Under  no  circumstances  is  a  professional  "ex- 
horter,"  or  lodge  organising  preacher,  allowed  on  the 


120      The  American  Race  Problem 

property.  The  virtue  of  patience  has  been  exercised 
to  a  degree  that  has  more  than  once  threatened  its 
destruction. 

It  would  be  manifestly  unfair  to  judge  such  an  ex 
periment  by  its  first  year.  This  was  a  most  trouble 
some,  and,  to  the  management,  rather  discouraging  ex 
perience.  Little  was  accomplished  beyond  getting  af 
fairs  in  easier  running  order.  The  third  year  is  not  yet 
closed,*  but  promises  results  about  in  keeping  with  the 
second,  the  complete  figures  of  which  are  available. 
There  were  in  cultivation  in  1900,  1,300  acres.  The 
total  value  of  the  product  was  $54,000,  an  average  of 
a  little  more  than  $41.50  per  acre.  There  were  on  the 
place  6 1  families,  containing  80  men  and  81  women,  in 
cluding  children  old  enough  to  work,  and  67  younger 
children,  a  total  of  228  persons  in  families.  These  fam 
ilies  occupied  61  houses,  containing  147  rooms,  an  aver 
age  of  1.5  persons  to  the  room.  There  was  an  average 
of  3.7  persons  to  the  family,  while  the  average  number 
of  hands  who  assisted  at  some  stage  of  the  crop  was  2.6. 
In  addition  to  the  families,  there  were  18  wages  hands 
employed,  who,  though  separately  housed,  must  be 
added  to  the  number  of  working  hands,  giving  a  total  of 
179.  We  thus  have  an  average  acreage  to  the  working 
hand  of  7.2,  with  an  average  product  value  of  $301.67 
per  hand.  Cotton  was  raised  to  the  value  of  $41,000, 
being  818  bales  of  500  pounds  average,  or  4.5  bales,  2,250 
pounds,  to  the  working  hand.  It  should  be  stated  that 
while  these  wages  hands  assisted  in  various  stages  of 

•  September,  1901. 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      121 

the  crop,  not  all  their  time  was  thus  employed  by  any 
means,  for  some  tenants  did  not  need  extra  hands  at  all. 
They  were  used,  when  not  in  crops,  in  clearing  new  land, 
ditching,  and  other  plantation  work. 

The  Negroes  with  whom  we  started,  in  January,  1899, 
with  possibly  three  exceptions,  had  absolutely  nothing, 
barring  their  clothing,  bedding,  and  furniture  —  all  of 
the  scantiest  and  poorest  kind.  It  would  be  a  most 
liberal  estimate  to  put  their  entire  belongings  at  that 
date  at  an  average  value  per  family  of  $30.  Yet  they 
were  an  average  lot  of  plantation  Negroes;  they  were 
of  many  ages,  and  came  from  many  sections;  of  the 
older  ones,  most  had  had  something,  but  had  lost  it 
in  shifting  from  pillar  to  post,  and  at  fifty  and  sixty 
years  of  age  were  empty-handed  ;  some  had  lived  on  a 
dozen  different  plantations  in  as  many  years.  They 
had  thus  to  start  with  us  actually  owing  for  their  first 
week's  supplies.  After  the  lapse  of  three  years,  the 
average  value  of  the  property  owned  by  the  sixty  and 
more  families  on  the  place  may  be  conservatively  esti 
mated  at  $200.  This,  of  course,  includes  no  cash  on 
hand  or  to  their  credit  on  our  books.  After  paying 
their  accounts,  the  tenants  on  the  place  in  1900  received 
$11,000  'in  cash.  Their  balances  this  year  (1901)  will 
amount  to  about  the  same  figure.  They  have  good  cloth 
ing,  their  houses  are  now  comfortably  furnished,  and  for 
cooking  purposes  the  open  fireplace  has  given  way  to 
the  kitchen  stove. 

The  following  statement  is  drawn  directly  from  the 
plantation  ledger  of  1900.  It  is  the  account  of  two  men 


122     The  American  Race  Problem 

who  worked  together  as  a  family.  These  hands  were 
above  the  average  in  point  of  steadiness  and  efficiency, 
but  the  account  is  fairly  illustrative  of  the  possibilities 
to  the  Negro  of  good  soil,  fair  prices,  hard  work,  and 
economy.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  value  of  their  pro 
duct  per  acre  appears  to  be  greater  by  about  $8  than 
the  average  of  the  plantation,  but  this  apparent  differ 
ence  will  be  explained  by  stating  that  in  computing 
the  latter  the  entire  acreage  of  the  plantation  was  in 
cluded.  If  we  exclude  from  consideration  all  raw,  first 
year  land,  such  as  was  not  allotted  to  renters,  the  differ 
ence  will  be  shown  to  be  very  much  less. 

ACCOUNT 

Debits 

Land  rent,  21  acres  $6  .           .           .           .           .           .  $126.00 

Mule,  paid  for  entirely  in  first  year           .           .          .  100.00 

Gear  and  implements    .           .           .           .           .           .  18.50 

Planting  seed        .......  10.30 

Seed  corn     .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .  1.65 

Supply  account    .           .           .           .           .           .          .  98.25 

Sundries 18.20 

Picking  6£  bales  cotton           .           .           .           .           .  59-45 

Ginning  and  wrapping  1 9  bales  cotton,  500  Ibs.  average  5 7 .  i o 

Mule  feed     .                     43-5° 


$532.95 
Credits. 

Nineteen  bales  cotton   .  .  $865.14 

Cotton  seed,  9.4  tons    .  .  .  .  .  H7-75 

Corn,  105  bushels — market  price  at  time,  50  cents  52.50 

$1,035.39 
Profits,  $502.44. 

Holding  their  corn,  they  had,  as  the  result  of  the 
year's  operations,  property  worth  $171.00.     It  will  be 


The  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta      123 

seen  that  their  cash  crop  overpaid  their  account  by 
$449.94. 

As  to  the  effect  of  the  showing  exhibited  here  upon 
the  Negro,  if  any,  it  is  impossible  to  judge.  Some  of 
those  who  had  least  at  the  outset  and  have  most  to-day 
are  preparing  to  leave  —  though  they  may  change  their 
minds  in  a  night,  after  having  made  their  arrangements 
to  depart,  while  some  have  already  left.  To  arrive  at 
a  just  conclusion  on  this  point  at  least  five  years  would 
be  required,  and  only  such  tenants  as  removed  to  other 
places  to  continue  the  tenant  relation  could  be  consid 
ered  in  enumerating  the  removals.  It  would  be  mani 
festly  unfair,  in  considering  the  extent  and  influence  of 
a  migratory,  restless  habit,  to  attribute  to  it  such  as  were 
actuated  by  opportunity  and  desire  to  purchase  land. 
Of  those  who  have  thus  far  left  the  place,  not  one  has 
done  so  to  become  a  land  owner. 

All  that  I  have  said  of  general  conditions  in  the  Delta 
applies,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  to  all  the  29,790  square 
miles  of  the  alluvial  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  The 
future  of  this  territory  will  inevitably  be  linked  with  the 
future  of  the  American  Negro.  The  movements  of  black 
population,  as  indicated  by  the  last  three  censuses,  show 
this  clearly  enough.  In  discussing  the  conditions  sur 
rounding  the  Negro  in  the  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta,  I 
have  not  attempted  to  present  such  a  picture  of  rural 
felicity  as  John  Stuart  Mill  quotes  from  Chateauvieux 
of  the  me'tayers  of  Piedmont.  But  I  am  well  within  the  i 
limits  of  conservatism  when  I  assert  that  in  the  material 
potentialities  of  his  environment  the  situation  of  the 


124     The  American  Race  Problem 

Negro  here  is  infinitely  superior  to  that  of  any  European 
peasant.  It  is  not  claimed  that  there  are  no  instances 
of  injustic  to  the  Negro.  Not  at  all.  But  I  do  claim 
that  nowhere  else  is  his  general  treatment  fairer  —  no 
where  is  his  remedy  more  certain.  This  is  but  corollary 
to  the  proposition  that  nowhere  in  the  same  extent  of 
territory  will  be  found  a  greater  or  more  constant  de 
mand  for  his  labour.  Nowhere  does  he  find  a  better  mar 
ket  for  his  service,  nowhere  is  he  freer  to  change  his 
local  habitation. 

To  say  how  long  conditions,  particularly  as  regards 
the  relations  between  the  races,  will  remain  as  they  are, 
would  be  to  enter  the  field  of  speculation  —  a  pastime  in 
which  I  am  not  engaged.  The  presentation  which  I 
have  attempted  is  believed  to  be  a  not  unfaithful  por 
trayal  of  the  present;  with  what  the  future  holds  in 
store  this  paper  has  no  concern. 


IV 

A  PLANTATION  EXPERIMENT* 

IN  A  PAPER  on  "The  Negro  in  the  Yazoo-Mississippi 
Delta,"  read  at  the  fourteenth  annual  meeting  of  the 
American  Economic  Association,!  I  briefly  touched  upon 
the  conduct  of  a  plantation  in  which  I  was  interested. 
Because  of  a  certain  degree  of  novelty  attaching  to 
some  of  the  features  which  characterised  the  business 
relations  between  the  plantation  management  and  its 
Negro  labour,  I  felt  justified  in  referring  to  these  transac 
tions  as  an  "experiment."  It  is  to  a  discussion  of  this 
experiment,  six  years  after  its  inception,  that  the  present 
paper  is  chiefly  addressed. 

An  adequate  supply  of  labour  is  the  first  essential  in 
the  business  of  raising  cotton.  To  secure  it  constitutes 
the  most  serious  problem  confronting  the  plantation 
management. '  Not  for  forty  years  has  the  supply  equal 
led  the  demand  in  the  alluvial  section  of  Mississippi. 
Here  the  Negro  still  has  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  field 
of  manual  labour,  though  at  last  his  supremacy  has  been 
threatened  by  the  white  man.  So  great  is  the  annual 
competition  among  planters  for  Negro  labour  that  the 
latter  is  afforded  opportunities  for  driving  bargains 


*  From  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  February,  1905. 
t  Chapter  III. 

125 


126     The  American  Race  Problem 

superior  to  those  possessed  by  any  other  class  of 
agriculturists  with  which  I  have  any  acquaintance. 

There  is  absolutely  no  fixed  basis  among  planters  for 
making  terms  with  labour,  and  in  consequence  contracts 
vary  through  a  wide  range  of  conditions.  Any  Negro 
family,  though  it  consist  of  only  a  man  and  his  wife, 
and  have  not  a  dollar  on  earth,  will  be  taken  into  partner 
ship  with  the  planter;  for  that  is  the  real  nature  of 
the  share  contract.  The  planter  will  locate  the  family 
for  the  year  in  a  comfortable  house,  on  its  proper  allot 
ment  of  as  good  land  as  can  be  found  in  America.  He 
will  furnish  the  land  (which  includes  house,  fuel,  water, 
and  garden  free),  seed  to  plant  it,  and  team  and  imple 
ments  with  which  to  cultivate  it.  This  is  the  planter's 
part,  and  against  it  the  Negro  furnishes  his  labour,  and 
agrees  to  make  and  gather  the  crop.  The  two  divide 
whatever  is  raised,  share  and  share  alike.  In  addition 
the  planter  supplies  the  sharehand  with  food,  clothing, 
tobacco,  medicine,  and  medical  attention.  He  does 
this  from  the  day  the  family  reaches  the  plantation 
until  the  day  it  decides  to  "move,"  or,  rather,  until  the 
planter  learns  of  such  decision.  He  hazards  his  advances 
upon  the  sole  security  of  the  crop,  and  looks  to  the 
Negro's  share  for  his  reimbursement. 

In  the  paper  to  which  I  have  referred  I  made  this 
statement:  "There  is  scarcely  a  planter  in  all  this 
territory  who  would  not  gladly  make  substantial  con 
cessions  for  an  assured  tenantry.  I  do  not  mean  for 
Negroes  who  would  stay  with  him  always,  and  never 
take  advantage  of  an  opportunity  for  genuine  better- 


A  Plantation  Experiment         127 

ment,  but  merely  for  such  as  would  remain  with  him 
only  so  long  as  they  were  willing  to  work  at  all  under 
the  same  conditions,  and  should  receive  honest  and 
considerate  treatment  at  his  hands."*  I  would  to-day, 
and  with  all  possible  emphasis,  reiterate  this  assertion. 
It  was  to  the  desire  and  hope  of  building  up  some 
such  "assured  tenantry"  that  our  experiment  largely 
owed  its  inception.  Its  salient  features  were:  Uni 
formity  of  tenant  system,  all  land  being  rented  at  a 
fixed  cash  rental;  the  sale  of  stock,  implements,  and 
wagons  to  tenants  upon  exceptionally  favourable  terms ; 
the  exercise  of  proper  supervision  over  the  crop;  the 
use  of  a  contract  defining  in  detail  the  undertakings  of 
each  party ;  the  handling  and  disposition  of  the  gathered 
crop  by  the  plantation  management.  Let  there  be  no 
misunderstanding  of  the  motives  behind  all  this.  There 
was  nothing  philanthropic  about  it.  It  was  a  business 
proposition,  pure  and  simple,  but  certainly  one  with  two 
sides  to  it.  The  plan  was  to  select  a  number  of  Negro 
families,  offer  them  the  best  terms  and  most  advanta 
geous  tenant  relation,  and  so  handle  them  and  their 
affairs  as  to  make  them  reach  a  condition  approaching 
as  nearly  as  possible  that  of  independence.  The  hope 
was  that,  having  accomplished  this  purpose,  we  would 
thereby  also  have  in  large  measure  solved  the  labour 
problem,  having  attached  to  the  plantation  by  ties 
of  self-interest  a  sufficient  number  of  these  independent 
renters  to  make  us  in  turn  measurably  independent  of 
the  general  labour  situation.  The  problem  before  us 

*  Idem,  p,  109. 


128     The  American  Race  Problem 

was  to  place  in  the  hands  of  these  people  the  means  of 
acquiring  something  for  themselves,  and  then,  in  every 
instance  of  deficient  individual  initiative,  by  proper 
supervision  make  them  acquire  it. 

The  principal  statistical  features  of  the  experiment 
during  the  five-year  period  which  witnessed  its  beginning 
and  its  practical  abandonment  may  be  thus  summar 
ised.  We  brought  to  the  plantation,  at  the  close  of 
the  season  of  1898,  30  new  families,  and  began  the  first 
year,  1899,  with  a  total  of  58.*  On  i  ,064  acres  of  cotton 
land  we  made  but  459  bales  of  500  pounds  average,  a 
family  average  of  7.9  bales.  The  average  price  received 
was  7.50  cents  per  pound;  and  the  entire  crop,  cotton 
and  seed,  brought  $21,663.88,  or  a  family  average  of 
^373-S1-  Of  the  families  on  the  place,  26,  or  44.8  per 
cent.,  left  at  the  end  of  the  year.  We  moved  in  27 
families,  and,  with  the  59  which  the  addition  gave  us, 
cultivated  1,048  acres  of  cotton  in  1900.  The  crop  was 
817  bales,  or  13.8  per  family.  It  sold  at  an  average 
price  of  9.94  cents,  and  with  its  seed  brought  $47,541.66. 
This  was  an  average  cash  product  value  of  $805.79  per 
family. f  The  number  of  families  who  left  the  place 
at  the  close  of  the  year  was  13,  or  22  per  cent,  of  the 
total.  We  secured  15  new  ones,  and  had  on  the  place 


*  The  number  of  persons  to  the  average  family  remains  practically  stationary 
at  about  3.7.  See  Chapter  III.,  p.  120. 

t  The  "cash  product"  value  must  not  be  confused  with  the  total  crop  value 
shown  for  this  year  in  the  previous  chapter  nor  the  total  acreage  given  there 
with  the  cotton  acreage  shown  above.  It  may  be  explained  that  the  number  of 
families  given  in  the  previous  chapter,  sixty -one,  included  two  occupying  some 
what  anomalous  tenant  relations,  who  have  been  omitted  here.  The  number 
of  bales  given  here  —  817  —  is  correct,  instead  of  818,  as  shown  in  the  other 
paper. — Chapter  III.,  p.  120. 


A  Plantation  Experiment         129 

6 1  families  in  1901.  We  had  this  year  in  cotton  1,348 
acres,  and  raised  1,270  bales,  20.8  to  the  family.  At  an 
average  price  of  7.90  cents  for  the  cotton  this  crop, 
including  seed,  realized  $60,742.04,  being  $995.77  per 
family.  We  lost  16  families  this  year,  26.2  per  cent, 
of  the  whole  force,  and  moved  in  24  new  squads,  which 
gave  us  69  for  1902.  The  latter  year  we  raised  1,131 
bales  of  cotton  on  1,341  acres.  Seed  and  cotton  brought 
$54,593.26,  the  average  price  of  the  latter  being  8.08 
cents  per  pound.  The  average  product  of  cotton  was 
16.4  bales  per  family,  the  average  value  of  cotton  and 
seed  $791.20.  At  the  end  of  the  year  we  lost  17  families, 
24.6  per  cent,  of  the  'total,  and  moved  in  23  for  the 
following  year.  This  gave  us  75  squads  for  1903.  We 
cultivated  1,392  acres  of  cotton,  and  raised  741  bales, 
9.8  to  the  family.  This  brought  11.77  cents  per  pound, 
the  cotton  and  seed  selling  for  $53,527.73,  or  an  average 
of  $713.70  per  family.  At  the  close  of  the  season  31 
families,  41.3  per  cent,  of  our  working  force,  left  the 
plantation.* 

During  the  period  under  review  the  tenant  system 
of  the  plantation  was  changed  from  an  exclusively 
rent  basis  to  just  as  nearly  an  exclusively  share  basis 
as  it  was  possible  to  reduce  it.  In  the  first  two  years  the 
entire  plantation  was  in  the  hands  of  renters,  while  of 
the  cotton  acreage  in  1903  they  worked  but  54.6  per 
cent.,  and  produced  but  45.3  per  cent,  of  the  crop. 


*  The  above  figures  and  others  of  more  or  less  interest  in  connection  with  this 
discussion  are  given  in  the  table  on  p.  148.  For  aid  in  compiling  the  data  I  wish 
to  acknowledge  my  great  indebtedness  to  my  business  associate,  Mr.  Julian  H. 
Fort. 


130     The  American  Race  Problem 

This  has  been  still  further  reduced,  and  of  a  total  culti 
vated  acreage  of  1,577  m  I9°4  they  worked  but  465 
acres,  or  less  than  30  per  cent.  The  number  of  families 
on  the  place  increased  from  58  to  75  during  this  period; 
the  number  renting  fell  from  58  to  36,  a  decline  in  per 
cent,  of  the  total  number  from  100  to  48.  Here,  again, 
the  renters  lost  still  further  in  1904,  falling  to  30  families 
out  of  79  —  a  decline  to  less  than  38  per  cent,  of  the 
total.  In  1899  they  held  73  head  of  work  stock,  94.8 
per  cent,  of  the  total  number  on  the  place.  This  fell 
to  60  head  in  1903,  which  was  but  47.6  per  cent,  of  the 
total.  Here,  too,  there  has  been  another  decline,  the 
60  in  1903  having  fallen  to  but  23  in  1904. 

But  the  story  of  the  decline  of  the  renter  on  Dunleith 
Plantation  —  of  the  failure  to  accomplish  what  was  at 
least  hoped  for  under  the  system  inaugurated  in  1899  — 
cannot  be  told  in  any  statistical  display,  nor  can  the 
reasons  which  compelled  the  abandonment  of  the 
experiment  be  set  forth  in  a  column  of  figures.  Back 
of  the  inception  of  the  scheme  was  the  desire  to  create 
a  satisfied  and  satisfactory  force  of  reasonably  permanent 
tenants.  Not  that  we  were  ever  sanguine  enough  to 
hope  to  have  them  all  in  this  category.  We  would 
have  been  satisfied  with  a  group  of  50  per  cent,  of  the 
total,  or  even  with  less.  It  was  hoped  to  accomplish 
our  object  by  a  direct  appeal  to  self-interest.  We 
demonstrated  our  ability  to  make  independent  property- 
owning  families  out  of  poverty-stricken  material. 
These  families  in  turn  demonstrated  the  fact  of  their 
independence  by  severing  relations  with  us  almost  as 


A  Plantation  Experiment         131 

promptly  as  we  put  them  on  their  feet.  After  the 
termination  of  three  years  we  had  begun  to  feel  reason 
ably  certain  that  even  the  most  practical  appeal  we 
could  make  to  radically  improved  material  welfare 
would  be  generally  overcome  by  an  apparently  instinc 
tive  desire  to  "move."  After  the  experience  of  five 
years  we  were  quite  satisfied  of  our  entire  incapa 
city  to  make  the  average  plantation  Negro  realise 
the  remotest  causal  relation  between  stability  and 
prosperity. 

We  were  not  surprised  to  have  twenty-six  families 
leave  us  the  first  year  nor  were  we  especially  concerned 
over  the  departure  of  thirteen  the  second.     It  was  not 
alone  the  number  who  left  us  each  year,  but  likewise 
the  increasing  annual  drain  on  the  property  involved 
in  their  departure  that  forced  us  to  realise  the  utter 
impossibility   as  a  business  proposition  of  continuing 
our  general  system.     In  operating  a  plantation,  stock 
and  implements  rank  with  labour  as  necessary  comple 
ments.     A  cardinal  feature  of  our  plan  involved  the 
placing  of  the  first  two  essentials  in  the  hands  of  the 
latter.     If  the  labour  could  be  depended  upon  to  remain 
on  the  property  under  normal  conditions  a  reasonable 
average  length  of  time,  this  result  would  of  course  have 
been  merely  incidental  to  a  successful  conclusion  of  the 
experiment.     If,   however,  the  labourers  proved  con 
clusively  that  they  could  not  be  so  depended  upon, 
then  to  have  continued  to  put  the  business  at  their 
mercy  by  giving  them  control  over  everything  necessary 
to  its  conduct  would  have  been  extending  a  foolhardy 


132     The  American  Race  Problem 

invitation  to  ultimate  disaster.     It  is  bad  enough  to 
have  to  face  a  general  exodus  of  labour,  but  such  a 
contingency  becomes  doubly  serious  when  it  involves 
the  loss  of  stock  and  implements  as  well.     There  are 
on  the  plantation  to-day  but  two  head  of  work  stock 
that  were  there  in  1 899.     What  has  transpired  gradually, 
and  without  serious   consequences,  might  easily  have 
occurred  in  a  single  year  with  disastrous  results,  had 
we  allowed  the  acquisition  of  stock  by  the  labour  to 
proceed  far  enough.     I  wish  it  understood  that  not 
the  slightest  obstacle  is  placed  in  the  way  of  a  tenant's 
acquiring  implements  and  stock,  but  also  that  we  no 
longer  sell  him  these  things  on  long  time,  nor  do  we 
otherwise    personally    encourage    their    purchase.     We 
simply  endeavour  to  fill  the  place  of  each  departing 
renter  with  a  sharehand,  and  try  to  confine  such  renting 
as  we  are  compelled  to  do  to  such  as  come  to  us  with 
stock  of  their  own.      In  short,  we  are  no  longer   en 
gaged  in  the  altruistic  enterprise  of  converting  shift 
less    and    empty-handed    Negroes    into    desirable  and 
well-equipped  tenants  for  the  temporary  benefit  of  other 
planters. 

From  1899  to  1903,  leaving  out  of  consideration  the 
30  new  families  brought  in  at  the  beginning  of  the  former 
year,  we  moved  in  124  families.  In  the  same  period  we 
lost  103.  Of  the  79  families  on  the  place  in  1904  but 
8  were  with  us  in  1899.  Of  the  103  who  have  left,  some 
with  little,  some  with  much,  not  one  has  become  an 
owner  of  land.  Most  have  simply  continued  as  tenants 
elsewhere.  Many  have  lost  what  they  carried  away, 


A  Plantation  Experiment         133 

and  have  become  sharehands  on  other  plantations. 
Some  have  dropped  into  the  ranks  of  day  labourers. 
A  few  have  drifted  into  towns.  Let  me  illustrate  one 
of  these  removals.  In  December,  1900,  we  moved  in  a 
crew  of  seven  people.  They  all  represented  themselves 
as  working  hands,  though  one  of  the  men  was  over  sixty- 
five,  with  a  wife  past  sixty.  Their  entire  outfit  consisted 
of  a  horse,  worth  at  a  liberal  valuation  $50,  and  $58 
worth  of  miscellaneous  and  indescribable  household 
effects.  In  December,  1903,  while  riding  over  the  place 
one  day,  my  attention  was  arrested  by  a  procession 
slowly  approaching  me.  It  consisted  partly  of  two 
wagons,  one  buggy,  two  mules,  one  horse,  three  cows, 
two  calves,  and  five  dogs  —  the  property'  of  this  same 
crew  of  seven.  In  addition  they  had  with  them  out 
side  wagons  enough  to  assist  them  in  hauling  away 
285  bushels  of  corn,  $190  worth  of  household  effects 
(including  a  sewing-machine  for  each  woman  and  a  gun 
for  each  man),  and  a  half-dozen  crates  of  hogs  and 
several  of  poultry.  During  the  three  years  they  had 
paid  rent  and  accounts  amounting  to  $4,168.96,  had 
received  in  cash  $747.85,  and  had  cash  paid  for  help 
in  their  crops  to  the  amount  of  $393.90.  Their  accounts, 
of  course,  included  a  variety  of  purchases  in  addition  to 
their  living  expenses.  They  carried  away  $1,100  worth 
of  personal  property.  They  left  to  get  rid  of  the  super 
vision  incident  to  plantation  management,  and  removed 
a  short  distance  to  the  property  of  a  non-resident,  and 
secured  their  advances  from  a  merchant.  In  November 
last  I  learned  that  the  head  of  the  squad  had  applied  to 


The  American  Race  Problem 


a  neighbouring  planter   for   a  location   for    1905,   and 
wanted  the  latter  to  lift  a  debt  of  $1,000  for  him.* 

Of  those  who  have  left  I  have  said  that  it  was  not  so 
much  their  number  as  their  condition  that  concerned 
us.  In  this  connection  let  us  look  into  the  condition 
of  the  thirty-one  families  who  left  us  at  the  close  of  1903. 
It  may  suggest  itself  to  some  that  the  single  illustration 
just  given  cannot  be  typical  of  the  possible  consequences 
of  the  removal  of  a  large  number  of  renters  at  one  time, 
but  that  it  is  an  isolated  instance,  selected  to  prove  a 
case.  A  study  of  the  entire  group  of  families  who  left 
that  same  year  will  also  serve  as  a  reply.  Thirteen  of 
these  families  were  renters,  and  carried  with  them  the 
following  personal  property: 

25  head  of  stock  .......  $3,125.00 

9  wagons      ........  360.00 

8  cows  and  calves           ......  200.00 

Implements           .......  325.00 

Household  effects           ......  650 .  oo 

i ,400  bushels  of  corn     ......  700.00 


$5,360.00 

They  also  had  between  $800  and  $900  in  cash;  but,  as 
this  is  an  estimate  it  is  not  included.  One  of  these 
families  had  rented  twenty- three  acres  of  land,  and  had 
been  paid  a  cash  balance  of  $659.60.  Another  rented 
twenty-five  acres,  and  drew  a  cash  balance  of  $734.72. 
Of  the  thirty-one  families  eighteen  were  sharehands, 
and  had  but  $360  worth  of  property,  and  that  in  the 

*  Since  the  above  was  put  in  print  this  squad  has  returned  to  us  to  make  a 
crop  the  present  year.  It  surrendered  all  it  had,  save  household  effects,  to  its 
merchant,  and  in  addition  we  advanced  $75  to  cover  a  balance.  It  begins  where 
it  started  before,  with  nothing,  and  this  time  will  work  on  shares. 


A  Plantation  Experiment         135 

shape  of  household  effects.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why 
the  removal  of  the  thirteen  renters  was  a  more  serious 
matter  than  the  loss  of  the  eighteen  sharehands. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  unequal  distribution 
of  wealth  in  this  country,  but  I  have  always  believed 
the  wealth  of  the  American  Negro  to  be  more  unequally 
shared  than  that  of  any  other  class  of  our  population. 
Of  course  these  figures  are  too  insignificant  to  be  worth 
anything  whatever  in  this  connection,  nor  is  this  paper 
concerned  with  such  a  discussion.  The  remark  is 
suggested,  however,  by  a  glance  at  the  average  holdings 
of  these  two  groups  of  families.  If  we  stop  with  the 
statement  that  thirty-one  families  owned  $5,720  worth 
of  property,  we  have  the  very  fair  showing  of  $184.51 
per  family.  The  actual  distribution  of  their  total 
holdings,  however,  gives  the  renters  $412.30  per  family, 
and  the  sharehands  but  $20.  This  inequality  holds 
also  with  the  seventy-nine  families  on  the  plantation 
in  1904.  They  own,  all  told,  $7,180  worth  of  property. 
This  would  be  $90.88  per  family.  An  analysis,  however, 
shows  that  thirty  renters  own  $177.33  per  family,  or 
$5,320  of  the  total.  (This  is  within  $40  of  the  exact 
amount  taken  away  by  the  thirteen  renters  in  1903.) 
Of  the  balance;  $1,120  is  held  by  twelve  sharehands, 
an  average  per  family  of  $93.33.  The  remaining  $740 
is  made  up  of  a  distribution  of  $20  each  to  thirty-seven 
sharehands,  solely  for  household  effects.  But  a  further 
analysis  shows  a  still  more  striking  inequality.  The 
eight  families  who  have  been  with  us  since  1899  consti 
tute  but  little  more  than  10  per  cent,  of  the  total  in 


136     The  American  Race  Problem 

1904,  but  own  more  than  60  per  cent,  of  the  total  prop 
erty.  They  own  $4,375  worth,  or  $546.87  per  family. 
While  there  is  no  question  in  my  mind  as  to  the  cash 
rent  tenancy  being  preferable,  from  the  labourers' 
standpoint,  to  any  form  of  me'tayer,  yet  I  must  not  be 
understood  as  holding  that  all  the  advantages  by  any 
means  accrue  to  the  side  of  the  former  system.  Earlier 
in  this  discussion  I  gave  an  entirely  unexaggerated 
statement  of  what  the  planter  will  do  in  the  way  of 
"staking"  the  sharehand  who  comes  to  him  with  a 
capital  consisting  only  of  ability  to  work.  Thanks  to 
a  crop  lien  law  and  a  fertile  soil,  such  a  man  can  secure 
advances  in  my  section  of  the  country  upon  the  sole 
security  of  the  crop  to  be  grown  by  him.  He  has  the 
advantage  over  the  renter  of  having  the  planter  for  a 
partner,  and  the  latter  takes  all  the  risk.  If  disaster 
overtake  him,  the  renter  may  lose  his  stock  and  imple 
ments,  but  the  sharehand  operates  on  another's  capital. 
At  worst  he  can  lose  but  his  labour,  and  for  this  he  has 
in  any  possible  contingency  at  least  been  sheltered, 
clothed,  and  fed.  After  all,  the  net  results  to  the 
tenant  depend  far  more  upon  his  individual  efforts  and 
upon  his  habits,  whether  of  extravagance  or  economy, 
than  upon  any  fixed  features  incident  to  one  system  of 
tenure  or  the  other.  Upon  every  plantation  are  to  be 
found  sharehands  who  make  just  as  much  as  do  any  of 
the  renters,  and  the  nature  of  whose  tenant  relation  is 
entirely  of  their  own  choosing.  A  number  of  accounts 
could  be  adduced  to  illustrate  the  relative  results  of  the 
two  systems,  but  the  personal  equation  is  so  large  a  fac- 


A  Plantation  Experiment         137 

tor  as  to  impair  the  value  of  bare  figures  for  purposes  of 
comparison.  The  two  following  are  selected  because  they 
are  accounts  of  families  equal  in  all  essential  respects. 
They  are  for  1 903 ,  and  are  condensed  as  much  as  possible. 

RENTER  :   l8j  ACRES   (15^  IN  COTTON,  3   IN  CORN). 

Debits. 

Rent $129.50 

Merchandise          .          .          .          .          .           .          .  96.75 

Stock  feed 52-65 

Blacksmith,  doctor,  and  planting  seed     .          .          .  25.58 

Work  in  crop,  picking  and  ginning           .          .          .  42.60 

Cash  .                                                                                     .  162.48 


$509.56 
Credits. 
Net  proceeds  of  8  bales  of  cotton,  4,543  pounds  and 

seed  from  same       ......        $509.56 

SHAREHAND  :  l8  ACRES  (16  IN  COTTON,  2  IN  CORN). 

Debits. 

Merchandise $91-85 

Work  in  crop,  picking  and  ginning           .           .           .  40 .  oo 

Cash  .                                         196.40 


$328.25 
Credits. 
One-half  net  proceeds  of   10  bales  of  cotton,  5,327 

pounds,  and  seed  from  same    .  .  .        $328.25 

The  renter  made  75  bushels  of  corn,  and  the  share- 
hand's  half  of  his  was  25  bushels.  The  sharehand  made 
333  pounds  of  lint  cotton  per  acre,  the  renter  293  pounds. 
The  latter  was  2  7  pounds  above  the  plantation  average 
for  the  year,  and  73  pounds  above  the  average  yield  of 
renters.  The  sharehand's  yield  was  67  pounds  above 
the  average  of  the  plantation  and  1 5  pounds  below  the 
average  sharehand's.  The  renter  had  three  items  on 
his  account  which  the  planter  has  to  provide  under  a 
share  contract,  namely,  blacksmith,  stock  feed,  and 


138     The  American  Race  Problem 

planting  seed.  The  sharehand  happened  to  have  no 
doctor's  bill.  The  renter  drew  $4 . 90  more  in  merchan 
dise  than  the  sharehand,  but  received  $33.92  less  cash. 
The  renter  owned  two  mules,  a  wagon,  and  implements, 
which  may  be  said  to  have  represented  his  operating 
capital.  He  also  owned  a  buggy.  The  sharehand 
operated  with  plantation  stock  and  implements,  but 
owned  a  riding  horse  and  a  cow. 

In  immediate  bearing  upon  our  experiment  and  as 
illustrating  the  gradual  transition  from  a  rent  to  a  share 
system,  the  most  significant  figures  in  the  appended 
table  are  those  which  show  the  stock  owned  by  renters, 
those  showing  the  rented  acreage,  and  those  giving  the 
number  of  families  renting,  with  per  cent,  of  total  num 
ber.  There  are  other  figures,  however,  of  more  or  less 
interest  in  any  general  discussion  of  plantation  economy. 
Take  the  acreage  production  of  lint  cotton,  for  example. 
The  figures  show  a  range  of  from  215  pounds  to  471, 
and  illustrate  the  fluctuations  that  may  result  from 
various  combinations  of  yield  and  price.  Their  study 
will  exhibit  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  business  —  its 
possibilities  and  its  hazards.  The  most  valuable  lesson 
they  offer  is  the  heavy  advantage  shown  to  follow  a 
large  yield  per  acre.*  In  the  figures  showing  the 


*  The  fluctuations  of  yield  exhibited  here  were  under  conditions  well-nigh 
absolutely  uniform  during  the  five  years  —  save  in  the  one  respect  of  weather. 
Cotton  is  essentially  a  "weather  crop,"  and  this  truism  points  to  the  fallacy 
of  most  of  the  deductions  and  speculations  founded  upon  the  indicated  yield  of 
1904.  The  most  assured  conclusion  as  to  labour  and  other  conditions,  and  the 
most  solemnly  announced  prediction  for  ensuing  years,  may  both  be  rendered 
absurd  by  too  much,  or  too  little,  rain  during  the  growing  season,  by  too  much 
while  the  crop  is  being  saved,  or  by  a  killing  frost  too  late  in  the  spring,  or  one 
too  early  in  the  fall. 


A  Plantation  Experiment         139 

amount  of  cash  advanced  tenants  each  year  on  the  two 
accounts  of  outside  work  in  making  their  crops  and  in 
extra  picking,  we  are  dealing  with  two  of  the  most 
important  factors  in  the  net  results  of  the  Negro's  crop. 
These  two  items  are  shown  to  have  been  $4.52  for  each 
bale  raised  in  1902.  Even  if  equally  distributed,  this 
would  have  imposed  an  average  charge  that  year  of 
$74.17  per  family.  But  the  amount  of  such  assistance 
needed  or  demanded  by  the  Negro  varies  all  the  way 
from  nothing  up  to  enough  to  consume  what  would 
otherwise  be  handsome  profits.  These  two  items  alone 
during  this  five-year  period  would  have  increased 
the  cash  balances  to  our  tenants  in  the  total  sum  of 
$15,248.90. 

The  transaction  between  the  planter  and  tenant  are 
frequently  utterly  devoid  of  any  approach  to  a  proper 
business  basis.  This  is  largely  on  account  of  the  char 
acter  of  the  labour,  and  rests  partly  on  established 
custom  and  partly  on  the  competition  for  hands.  At 
all  events,  out  of  the  combination  of  causes  the  Negro 
manages  to  realise  in  much  too  large  measure  for  his 
own  good  the  gratification  of  his  whims  and  pleasures. 
I  have  yet  to  know  of  one  so  deeply  in  debt  or  so  far 
behind  with  his  crop  as  to  cause  the  least  hesitation  in 
the  matter  of  demands  for  cash  for  the  circus  or  excur 
sion.  But  of  all  plantation  customs  the  most  pernicious, 
in  my  judgment,  is  that  of  advancing  "  Christmas 
money."  This  is  just  exactly  what  its  designation 
implies.  It  is  never  asked  for  under  any  pretext  of 
being  devoted  to  some  legitimate  or  substantial  use. 


140     The  American  Race  Problem 

It  is  drawn  for  the  sole  and  express  purpose  of  promoting 
the  pleasures  of  the  holiday  season,  which  begins, 
according  to  the  recognised  plantation  calendar,  several 
days  before  the  25th  of  December,  and  terminates  several 
days  after  the  ist  of  January.  I  have  never  heard  of  a 
dollar  of  such  money  being  diverted  from  its  destined 
aim.  It  is  spent  in  various  and  sundry  ways,  according 
to  the  individual  estimate  of  what  constitutes  "a  good 
time."  A  good  part  goes  for  railroad  fare  —  for  "riding 
the  train";  the  saloon  and  the  crap  table  receive  more 
than  their  share ;  some  goes  for  cheap  finery  and  pinch 
beck  jewellery.  We  tried  the  experiment  of  putting  this 
matter  on  a  business  basis  in  1899.  In  consequence 
there  was  no  "Christmas  money,"  but  we  have  put  out 
our  share  since.  The  figures  show  the  aggregate  amount 
on  this  account  to  have  been  $3,034.70.  This  may 
seem  small,  but  it  should  be  considered  in  conjunction 
with  the  accompanying  figures,  showing  the  cash  bal 
ances  and  advances  during  this  same  month  each  year. 
They  show  that  in  December  during  the  five  years 
there  was  advanced  a  total  of  $7,990.63  in  addition  to 
Christmas  money.  The  items  are  placed  in  juxta 
position,  so  that  the  significance  of  the  latter  annual 
draught  and  waste  may  be  the  more  readily  appreciated. 
To  illustrate  further  the  amount  of  cash  handled  by  the 
Negroes,  the  table  also  shows  the  cash  balances  and 
advances  to  them  during  the  ginning  season.  This 
usually  begins  in  September,  and  runs  to  January, 
February,  or  March,  according  to  conditions.  During 
these  months  there  was  paid  our  Negroes,  exclusive 


A  Plantation  Experiment         141 

of  advances  while  the  crop  was  being  grown,  cash  to  the 
amount  of  $44,727.05,  an  average  of  $8,945.41  each  year. 

In  concluding  my  earlier  paper,  to  which  in  some 
sense  this  may  be  considered  a  second  and  final  chapter, 
I  said  that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  judge  fairly  the 
effect  upon  our  Negro  labour  of  the  showing  at  that 
time  exhibited.  I  may  quote  this  statement:  "To 
arrive  at  a  just  conclusion  on  this  point,  at  least  five 
years  would  be  required,  and  only  such  tenants  as 
removed  to  other  places  to  continue  the  tenant  relation 
could  be  considered  in  enumerating  the  removals.  It 
would  be  manifestly  unfair,  in  considering  the  extent 
and  influence  of  a  migratory,  restless  habit,  to  attribute 
to  it  such  as  were  actuated  by  opportunity  and  desire 
to  purchase  land."* 

We  have  before  us  an  exhibit  of  the  transactions 
of  a  somewhat  longer  period  than  the  one  suggested. 
As  far  as  possible,  it  is  confined  to  a  bare  statement  of 
fact.  It  is  entirely  competent  for  anyone  interested 
in  the  subject  to  study  the  data  presented  and  reason 
to  his  own  conclusions.  In  judging  how  far  it  might 
be  safe  to  generalise  from  a  single  plantation  the  fol 
lowing  suggestions  may  with  some  possible  profit  be 
borne  in  mind.  The  operations  cover  a  period  practi 
cally  of  six  years,  though  all  the  crop  data  for  the  last 
year  are  not  available.  The  number  of  families  covered 
is  154,  and  of  individuals  affected  more  than  1,600. 
The  Negroes  composing  these  families  came  from  nearly 
every  section  of  the  South,  every  Southern  state  con- 

*  Chapter  III.  p.   123 


142     The  American  Race  Problem 

tributing,  with  the  exception  of  Texas  and  Florida. 
The  operations  extend  through  years  characterised  by 
extremes  both  of  yield  and  price,  with  an  excellent 
general  average  of  each.  The  plantation  management 
was  strongly  biased  in  favour  of  the  rent  system  at  the 
beginning  of  1899;  it  leans  as  strongly  toward  the 
share  system  at  the  close  of  1904.  The  relations  be 
tween  management  and  tenants  have  been  uniformly 
kindly  and  necessarily  most  intimate.  In  the  main 
the  families  have  been  of  good  class,  orderly,  and  well 
behaved,  but  one  homicide  having  occurred  among 
them  during  the  six  years.  No  one  of  the  103  families 
that  have  removed  has  undertaken  the  purchase  of 
land.  The  average  age  of  the  heads  of  families  has 
been  about  forty  years.  Of  the  eight  who  have  re 
mained  on  the  place  during  six  years,  four  are  over 
sixty-five,  one  over  sixty,  two  over  and  one  under  forty. 
To  my  mind,  the  most  suggestive  fact  which  these 
operations  would  seem  to  establish  is,  stated  conser 
vatively,  that  the  attainment  of  a  prosperous  condition 
by  the  plantation  Negro  does  not  influence  him  suffi 
ciently  to  create  an  attachment  for  the  local  environ 
ment  which  accomplishes  his  material  betterment. 
This  seems  to  me  true,  unless  the  removals  from  such 
environment  are  at  least  in  some  considerable  measure 
influenced  by  stronger  appeals  to  intelligent  self-interest 
than  are  offered  by  the  conditions  surrounding  the 
initial  improvement.  This,  of  course,  presumes  the 
persistence  of  normal  and  friendly  relations  between 
tenant  and  management.  I  take  it  that  in  the  case 


A  Plantation  Experiment         143 

before  us  we  are  justified  in  eliminating  at  the  outset, 
as  one  legitimate  occasion  of  removal,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression,  the  desire  to  become  a  land-owner,  inas 
much  as  no  attempt  was  made  in  such  direction.  In 
running  down  the  list  of  recorded  causes  of  removal, 
I  find  one,  and  but  one,  that  can  be  placed  in  the  class 
of  appeals  to  self-interest,  and  then  only  by  not  insisting 
that  such  self-interest  be  intelligent.  This  was  the 
case  of  several  well-to-do  renters  who  left  us  in  1902 
because  they  were  offered  a  reduction  of  land  rent  of 
one  dollar  per  acre  elsewhere.  Upon  its  face  such 
action  cannot  be  criticised.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
emphasised  the  operation  of  an  unfortunate  racial 
trait  —  the  thoughtless  failure  to  distinguish  between 
the  simplest  forms  of  real  and  fictitious  advantage,  the 
heedless  pursuit  of  the  shadow  for  the  substance.  The 
property  to  which  these  people  removed  was  run  down, 
its  houses  were  scarcely  habitable,  its  drainage  was 
poor,  and  there  was  not  another  family  on  it  at  the 
time.  The  reduced  rent  was  a  concession  to  necessity, 
yet  the  bait  was  seized  as  eagerly  as  though  the  hook 
were  not  visible  to  the  foresight  even  of  a  child.  With 
in  a  few  weeks,  whether  prompted  by  characteristic 
vacillation  or  by  the  operation  of  returning  common 
sense,  I  do  not  undertake  to  say,  some  of  these  families 
wanted  to  return  to  us. 

It  would  be  well-nigh  impossible  to  enumerate  the 
various  causes,  real  and  imaginary,  behind  the  change 
of  abode  of  the  hundred  and  odd  families  who  left  us 
during  these  years.  In  several  instances,  hands  left 


144     The  American  Race  Problem 

because  we  were  unwilling  to  advance  the  amount  of 
"Christmas  money"  to  which  they  felt  themselves 
entitled.  Some  departed  with  the  rare  frankness  of  a 
declaration  that  they  "just  wanted  a  change."  Family 
troubles,  the  separation  of  husbands  and  wives,  also 
account  for  their  share.  Still  others  went  because  of 
alleged  dissatisfaction  with  the  contract  under  which 
they  had  successfully  been  brought  to  a  state  of  inde 
pendence.* 

In  saying  that  I  have  long  since  abandoned  the  hope 
of  fathoming  the  processes  of  the  plantation  Negro's 
mind,  I  have  "a  conscience  void  of  offence "  toward  these 
people,  to  whom  I  have  never  knowingly  been  guilty 
of  an  unjust  act  or  word.  I  mean  simply  to  give  expres 
sion  to  the  conviction,  speaking  of  the  average,  of 
course,  and  not  of  the  rare  exception,  that  their  actions 
have  no  logical  or  reasonable  basis,  that  they  are  no 
tional  and  whimsical,  and  that  they  are  controlled  far 
more  by  their  fancies  than  by  their  common  sense. 
Not  that  the  Negro  is  to  be  called  upon  to  render  to 
the  world  a  reason  for  his  every  act  —  to  account  to 
his  critics  for  the  motives  behind  his  comings  and  his 
goings  upon  the  earth.  But  the  student  of  sociology 
and  economics  is  interested  to  discover  if  it  be  true, 
as  is  so  generally  stated,  that  a  certain  large  and  distinct 
class  of  the  world's  labouring  population  is  characterised 


*  In  selling  stock,  our  contract  had  required  the  renter  to  plant  enough  corn 
to  provide  sufficient  feed.  After  a  number  had  paid  for  their  mules,  they 
objected  to  this  because  corn  is  not  a  cash  crop.  One  of  the  changes  incident 
to  the  abandonment  of  our  experiment  was  the  discontinuance  of  our  compre 
hensive  contract,  and  the  substitution  of  one  of  a  dozen  lines  in  the  simplest 
possible  form  and  terms. 


A  Plantation  Experiment          145 

by  a  restless,  migratory  tendency.  This  interest  at 
taches  to  the  general  subject,  whether  the  concrete  illus 
tration  be  drawn  from  the  fields  of  the  Southern  states, 
from  the  diamond  mines  of  Kimberley,  or  from  the 
gold  workings  of  the  Rand.  The  matters  and  results 
treated  in  this  paper  merely  offer  cumulative  evidence 
to  the  correctness  of  a  largely  entertained  conviction. 
It  is  not  maintained  that  they  are  a  demonstration. 
But  the  fact  does  stand  out  that,  in  the  matter  of  build 
ing  up  a  group  of  reasonably  permanent  tenants,  these 
Negroes  signally  failed  to  respond  to  the  influence  of 
the  most  favourable  economic  conditions  with  which 
it  was  possible  for  a  plantation  to  surround  them. 
This  much  is  demonstrated,  and  I  account  for  it  in 
two  ways:  first,  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  migratory  in 
stinct;  second,  on  that  of  a  characteristic  easy-going 
indolence,  which  seeks  freedom  to  assert  itself,  and 
chafes  under  restraints  which  measurably  restrict  its 
enjoyment. 

The  Negro  race,  in  the  mass,  is  charged  with  numerous 
faults  and  weaknesses.  It  is  no  purpose  of  mine  to 
discover  new  ones  or  to  magnify  the  old.  I  but  give 
utterance  to  a  sincerely  entertained  opinion,  based 
upon  many  years  of  close  personal  observation,  when  I 
say  that  these  traits  to-day  present  the  greatest  obstacles 
to  the  real,  general,  permanent  advancement  of  the 
race,  whether  in  this  country,  Africa,  or  the  West  Indies. 
I  have  read  a  great  deal  about  the  Negro's  "love  of 
home,"  and  have  heard  much  of  the  strength  of  his 
"local  attachment,"  but  in  a  not  unkindly  search  I 


146     The  American  Race  Problem 

have  been  able  to  discover  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  among  the  masses  of  the  race.  To  my  mind 
they  are  a  restless  people.  Ever  seeking  change,  they 
sometimes  wander  far  afield,  and  traverse  the  boun 
daries  of  states  in  its  pursuit.  Again,  like  one  lost  in  a 
forest,  they  move  but  in  a  narrow  circle,  yet  always  in 
the  same  vain,  aimless  quest.  They  have  been  wan 
derers  since  emancipation  gave  free  play  to  native 
instinct,  and  I  do  not  see  how  a  love  of  home,  in  the 
real  sense,  could  characterise  a  people  who  in  the  mass 
know  so  little  of  such  an  abode.  Certainly,  the  planta 
tion  Negro  changes  his  residence  far  too  often  for  his 
children  to  form  local  attachments  or  to  develop  any 
thing  akin  to  such  a  sentiment.  I  have  often  been 
impressed  with  the  peculiar  significance  which  long 
usage  has  attached  to  the  very  word  "home"  among 
these  people.  It  has  come  to  mean  no  more  than 
"house,"  and  the  two  are  synonymous  terms.  When 
the  plantation  Negro  starts  out  in  quest  of  an  abiding 
place  for  another  year,  he  goes  in  search  of  another 
"home." 

On  November  26th,  1904,  the  principal  of  Tuskegee 
Institute  gave  to  the  press  a  statement  which  has  been 
very  widely  reproduced  aid  commented  upon.  It 
recited  "the  main  complaints  of  the  coloured  people," 
given  to  him  "time  and  time  again,"  as  explaining  their 
preference  for  the  "uncertain  existence"  of  cities  and 
towns  to  "comparative  prosperity  upon  a  farm."  I 
give  them  in  full:  "Poor  dwelling-houses,  loss  of  earn 
ings  each  year  because  of  unscrupulous  employers, 


A  Plantation  Experiment         147 

high-priced  provisions,  poor  school-houses,  short  school 
terms,  poor  school-teachers,  bad  treatment  generally, 
lynchings  and  whitecapping,  fear  of  the  practice  of 
peonage,  a  general  lack  of  police  protection,  and  want  of 
encouragement. ' ' 

Whether  or  not  the  really  effective  causes  behind  the 
urban  drift  observed  by  Mr.  Washington  in  Georgia 
are  essentially  different  from  those  behind  migrations 
from  place  to  place  in  the  Mississippi  Delta,  we  need 
not  stop  to  inquire.  My  only  suggestion  is  that  not 
one  charge  in  this  comprehensive  catalogue  was  ever 
laid  at  our  door,  yet  somehow  the  fact  of  local  drift 
and  restless  movement  still  remains  with  us  an  ever- 
present  reality.  And  what  I  say  for  ourselves  I  can 
say  likewise  for  scores  of  others.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
complaints  recited  are  not  real  in  some  counties  of  the 
South.  I  do  assert,  however,  that  they  fail  to  cover 
the  ground.  When  the  friend  of  the  Negro  masses 
would  know  the  whole  truth  behind  the  forces  which 
to-day  most  militate  against  the  material  progress  of 
the  race,  he  must  go  deep  below  the  surface  of  troubles 
which  the  white  man  can  remove  or  rectify. 


148     The  American  Race  Problem 


PLANTATION  STATISTICS 


YEAR. 

1899. 

1900. 

1901. 

1902. 

1903. 

Number  of  families. 

58 

59 

61 

69 

75 

Number  families  leav 
ing 

26 

T   ? 

16 

j  7 

Per  cent,  of  total  .  .  . 

44-8 

-1  o 
22 

26.2 

24.6 

3' 

41.3 

Cotton  acreage  

1,064 

1,048 

i,348 

1,341 

1,392 

Bales  (500  Ibs.   aver 
age)  

459 

Si? 

1,270 

1,131 

741 

Lint  per  acre  
Bales  per  family 

215 
7*0 

389 
13.8 

47i 

20.8 

421 

16  4 

266 

o  8 

Average  price,  cents  .  . 

7.50 

9-94 

7.90 

xu<4 

8.08 

y.o 

11.77 

Value   of   cotton   and 
seed  

$21,663.88 

$47,541.66 

$60,742.04 

$54,593.26 

$53,527.73 

Value  per  acre         . 

$20.36 

$45.36 

$45.06 

&AO    T  T 

$"?8  d? 

Value  per  family.    .  .  . 

$373.51 

$805.79 

$995.77 

SP4-U.  /  i 

$791.20 

SPjO.^O 

$713.70 

Stock  of  renters  
Per  cent,  of  total  on 

plclCC 

73 
94.8 

76 
ge    •, 

89 

78  7 

77 

6d  7 

60 

A.1  6 

Cash      advanced     for 
work     in     tenants' 
crops  

$465.40 

°  J'O 

$513.90 

/  °.  / 
$856.90 

u^..  / 

$741.40 

4.7.  u 
$161.80 

Cash  for  picking  

$759.8o 

$1,536.10 

$3,859.55 

$4,376.40 

$1,977-65 

Cash  for  work  and  pick 
ing  per  bale  

$2.66 

$2.50 

$3-71 

$4-52 

$2.88 

Work  and  picking  per 
family  

Christmas  money  

$  21.12 

None 

$34-40 

$375.OO 

$77.32 
$1,735.35 

$74-17 

$473-85 

$28.52 

$4-5O.  50 

Additional     cash     ad 
vanced   during   De 
cember 

$641.59 

$2,378.58 

$1,87  I  .OO 

$1,1  63.95 

$i  Q35-  5  1 

Total    cash    balances 
and  advances  during 
ginning  season  

$3,077-22 

$12,747.14 

$13,899.96 

$7,436.39 

$7,566.34 

Average     per     family 
during  ginning  sea 
son  

$53-05 

$2l6.05 

$227.86 

$107.77 

$100.88 

Number  families  rent 
ing  
Per  cent  of  total  . 

58 

100 

59 

IOO 

86S1 

654f 

36 
48 

Rented     cotton   acre 
age 

1,064 

1,048 

I,  2OO 

884 

761 

Per  cent,  of  total  . 

IOO 

IOO 

89.02 

65.9 

54-6 

THE  ECONOMIC  FUTURE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO* 
THE  FACTOR  OF  WHITE  COMPETITION 

THIS  is  too  broad  a  subject  to  be  treated  compre 
hensively  within  the  limits  of  this  paper.  Hence  I 
shall  address  myself  only  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
most  important  question  in  any  practical  consideration 
of  the  Negro's  economic  future  —  the  factor  of  white 
competition. 

I  shall  not  even  attempt  a  discussion  of  census 
statistics.  Such  figures,  save  in  a  general  way,  do 
not  speak  for  themselves.  They  must  be  interpreted. 
As  a  result  we  have  a  variety  of  conflicting  deductions 
drawn  from  the  same  statistical  material.  A  census 
volume  in  some  respects  resembles  the  Bible.  Each  is 
a  repository  of  truth,  and  from  the  one  we  can  fortify 
almost  any  economic  bias,  while  from  the  other  we 
can  satisfy  any  religious  opinion  we  happen  to  pos 
sess.  Two  courses  are  open  to  those  interested 
particularly  in  this  branch  of  the  subject:  either  to 
study  the  mass  of  data  at  first  hand,  and  work  out  one's 
own  conclusions,  or  accept  such  findings  of  others 
as  appeal  most  strongly  to  one's  judgment  or  predilec 
tions.  If  I  can  contribute  anything  whatever  of  value 

*  Read  at  the  eighteenth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Economic  Associa 
tion,  Baltimore,  Md.,  December,  1905. 

149 


150     The  American  Race  Problem 

to  this  discussion,  I  am  persuaded  it  will  be  by  drawing 
upon  those  observations  and  experiences  of  common 
life,  which,  to  borrow  an  idea  of  Lord  Erskine,  after  all 
are  themselves  of  the  essence  of  truth. 

At  the  outset  of  our  speculations  upon  the  future  of 
the  Negro  we  are  confronted  with  our  ignorance  of  his 
present  economic  status.  We  are  in  doubt  about  even 
the  elementary  fact  of  his  present  accumulated  wealth. 
Mr.  Schurz  places  it  at  $800,000,000.  Mr  Edward 
Atkinson,  shortly  before  his  death,  accepted  a  New 
York  World  estimate  of  $750,000,000.  Mr.  Kealing,  a 
coloured  authority,  claims  $1,000,000,000.  A  com 
mittee  of  this  association,  under  the  chairmanship  of 
Professor  Walter  F.  Willcox,  and  including  Dr.  DuBois 
in  its  membership,  places  the  figures  at  "approximately 
$300,000,000."  And  after  we  have  agreed  upon  such 
figures  what  do  they  tell  us  of  the  stability  and  rate,  of 
even  the  extent,  of  economic  progress?  In  the  answer 
to  this  question  are  involved  two  widely  accepted 
fallacies:  first,  that  the  Negro  began  life  forty  years 
ago  with  nothing  but  his  freedom;  second,  that  the 
period  of  his  emancipation  has  been  one  of  marvellous 
economic  achievement. 

It  is  easy  to  prove  progress  if  permitted  to  take  zero 
as  our  starting  point  and  measure  of  comparison. 
Frederick  Douglass's  plea,  that  the  Negro  race  be  not 
judged  by  the  heights  to  which  it  had  attained,  but 
rather  by  the  depths  from  which  it  had  come,  has  met 
with  such  a  response  that  the  acceptance  of  all  it  implies 
has  become  a  cardinal  tenet  with  most  of  those  who 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    151 

discuss  the  Negro's  industrial  life.  It  is  both  pleasanter 
and  easier  to  accept  this  appeal  than  it  is  to  test  its 
merit.  But  I  take  it  that  we  are  not  willing  to  flounder 
about  in  a  maze  of  speculation,  satisfied  on  the  one 
hand  with  fulsome  eulogies  of  doubtful  achievements, 
or,  upon  the  other,  content  to  condemn  a  race  to  eco 
nomic  servitude  without  a  trial  or  upon  false  testimony. 
If  we  would  know  the  truth  as  to  where  we  are,  we 
should  at  least  endeavour  to  learn  how  far  we  have 
really  come.  This  means  a  study  of  the  economic 
status  of  the  Negro  in  1865,  and  this  I  have  time  only 
to  briefly  touch  upon. 

I  merely  suggest  for  your  consideration  certain  facts 
in  this  connection,  tending  to  disprove  the  reiterated 
assertion  of  the  Negro's  pauperism  at  the  time  of  his 
emancipation.  We  seem  to  overlook  the  fact  that 
there  were  half  a  million  free  Negroes  (487,970)  in  this 
country  in  1860,  distributed  throughout  practically 
all  the  states  of  the  union.  In  their  ranks  were  to  be 
found  men  engaged  in  nearly  every  form  of  industrial 
enterprise  followed  by  such  persons  to-day.  Another 
fact  is  that  the  four  million  (3,953,760)  slaves  of  1860 
occupied  in  1865  an  apparently  impregnable  economic 
position.  They  furnished  a  great  proportion  of  the 
skilled  labour  of  the  entire  South,  and  in  many  parts  of 
it  enjoyed  an  absolute  monopoly  of  this  and  the  field 
of  common  labour  as  well.  The  evidence  as  to  such 
conditions  is  conclusive,  but  it  need  not  be  sought  in 
census  reports.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  press  of  the 
period;  in  the  reported  proceedings  of  Negro  industrial 


152     The  American  Race  Problem 

bodies;  in  the  correspondence  of  private  individuals 
who  went  South  after  1863 ;  in  the  reports  of  numerous 
freedmen's  aid  commissions  and  societies;  and  to  some 
extent  in  the  official  reports  of  agents  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau.  It  is  to  be  had  also  in  pamphlets  and  other 
writings  of  Negroes  themselves.  We  may  not  be  able 
to  say  that  in  1865  the  race  had  accumulated  a  specific 
number  of  dollars,  though  the  amount  was  well  into  the 
millions.  We  cannot  do  that  even  in  1905.  We  can 
learn  enough,  however,  to  realise  that  we  are  only  be 
clouding  the  truth  when  we  speak  of  the  Negro's  eco 
nomic  progress  as  an  achievement  of  the  past  forty  years. 
It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  if  we  seek  to  measure  such 
progress  by  present  property  holdings,  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  answer  the  questions,  How  much  has  the 
Negro  accumulated  during  the  last  forty  years?  and, 
How  much  had  he  acquired  during  the  preceding  hun 
dred  and  forty? 

It  is  inconceivable  that  any  people  who  could  increase 
in  numbers  from  four  and  a  half  millions  in  1860  to 
nine  millions  in  1900  could  fail  also  to  increase  their 
property  during  that  period.  In  discussing  as  some 
thing  wonderful  this  very  natural  increase  we  lose  sight 
of  factors  and  considerations  which  must  enter  into  any 
estimate  of  the  extent  to  which  such  increase  means 
genuine  and  permanent  economic  racial  progress.  How 
far  has  it  been  a  mere  advance  along  lines  of  least  re 
sistance  ?  In  what  degree  is  it  indicated  by  the  success 
of  more  or  less  isolated  groups,  under  favourable  local 
conditions  ?  How  has  this  acquisition  of  property  kept 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    153 

pace  with  that  of  others  about  them,  and  how  far  does  it 
represent  only  the  crumbs  from  the  rich  man's  table  ? 
How  great  a  proportion  is  held  by  the  exceptional  few 
and  how  much  distributed  among  the  masses  ?  How 
much  of  the  total  is  traceable  to  the  gifts  and  bequests 
of  white  ancestors?  To  what  extent  does  this  increase 
mean  the  holding  of  their  own,  or  actual,  positive 
progress,  in  the  face  of  slowly  but  steadily  increasing 
white  competition?  In  how  far  is  it  attributable  to 
the  training  and  steadying  influences  of  the  period  of 
slavery?  In  what  proportion  do  the  older  and  younger 
elements  of  the  race,  respectively,  contribute  to  the 
total  wealth  of  the  whole?  These  are  some  of  the  con 
siderations  which  must  be  taken  into  account,  in  an 
estimate  of  the  future  based  upon  something  more 
tangible  and  stable  than  the  skilful  handling  of  figures 
or  flatteringly  expressed  sentiments  of  good  will. 

The  greatest  asset  in  possession  of  the  Negro  of  1865 
was  the  great  salient  fact  that  at  that  time,  in  the  sec 
tion  in  which  he  lived,  he  was  practically  without  the 
competition  of  the  white  man.  To-day  the  most  por 
tentous  figure  that  looms  upon  his  economic  horizon  is 
that  of  his  white  competitor.  But  even  in  1865  he 
was  slowly  receding  before  such  competition  in  the 
North.  To  me  the  most  significant  utterance  at  the 
New  York  convention  of  the  National  Negro  Business 
League  in  1905  was  the  note  of  warning  sounded 
in  Mr.  Wanamaker's  address.  He  recalled  the  fact  that 
Philadelphia  once  had  a  number  of  Negro  business  men 
in  whom  the  local  business  world  took  pride.  But,  he 


154     The  American  Race  Problem 

said,  "many  of  them  lost  their  business  before  they 
passed  away.  As  an  old  business  man  I  am  speaking 
the  fact ;  they  lost  their  business  because  the  Swiss,  the 
Germans,  and  others  who  were  American  white  men  did 
that  same  business  better  than  they  did  it.  Their  color 
had  not  the  least  thing  to  do  with  it."* 

In  an  address  in  Brooklyn  at  about  the  same  time  Mr. 
Samuel  R.  Scottron  voiced  thejapprehensions  of  a  thought 
ful,  courageous  man,  not  dazzled  by  the  outer  show  of  the 
oft-proclaimed  "marvellous  progress "  of  his  people.  At 
the  same  time  he  gave  an  insight  into  the  economic 
position  of  the  Negro  in  New  York  half  a  century  ago. 
He  said  :  "I  have  hardly  to  go  beyond  the  years  of  my 
own  individual  experience  hereabouts  to  find  cause  for 
grave  doubt.  Note  in  this  city,  which  has  grown  so 
rapidly  that  it  seems  to  have  been  raised  by  the  touch 
of  a  wizard's  wand,  the  place  in  its  industrial  history 
that  the  Negro  held  forty  or  fifty  or  more  years  ago,  the 
opportunities  that  were  his  to  build  up  and  to  accumu 
late,  and  how  these  opportunities  were  neglected!  This 
is  evidence  of  a  people  easily  overcome;  no,  not  over 
come,  but  simply  retiring  without  a  contest  from  the 
places  which  were  not  only  theirs,  but  concededly 
theirs,  before  the  influx  of  those  peoples  who  represent 
all  that  remains  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans. 
The  Italian,  Sicilian,  Greek,  foreign  to  America's  lan 
guage  and  institutions,  occupy  quite  every  industry 
that  was  confessedly  the  Negro's  forty  years  ago.  They 
have  the  bootblack  stands,  the  news-stands,  barber- 

*  New  York  Age,  August  24,  1905,  p.  2. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro-  155 

shops,  waiters'  situations,  restaurants,  janitorships,  cater 
ing  business,  stevedoring,  steamboat  work,  and  other 
situations  once  occupied  by  Negroes  ;  and  furthermore, 
occupy  the  very  houses  which  were  once  the  homes  of 
Negroes — only  the  Negro  paid  rent,  while  the  Italian  is 
now  the  owner.  Look  at  West  Broadway,  Lawrence 
Street,  Thompson  Street,  Sullivan  Street,  Bleecker 
Street,  West  Fourth  Street,  Thomas,  Worth,  and  Leon 
ard  Streets,  in  New  York  City  to-day,  and  think  of  these 
streets  forty,  or  even  thirty,  years  ago.  Look  at  the 
ground  upon  which  we  now  stand,  and  on  the  section 
about  one  mile  square  known  in  early  days  as  Weeks- 
ville,  after  one  of  our  race,  named  James  Weeks. 
Think  of  those  of  our  people  who  occupied  all  these 
places  when  building  lots  could  have  been  bought  for 
$25  and  $50  and  $100  each,  and  look  upon  the  present 
occupants  —  Italians.  Think  of  our  city's  most  famous 
caterers  of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  They  were  the 
Downings,  Mars,  Watson,  Vandyke,  Ten  Eyck,  Day, 
Green,  and  others,  all  coloured.  Their  names  were  as 
familiar  and  as  representative  in  high-class  work  as  are 
Delmonico  and  Sherry  to-day.  Who  have  succeeded  to 
the  business  that  these  coloured  caterers  had  in  those 
days?  With  one  exception,  Italians.  Not  one  has  left 
a  child  in  an  enlarged  business  of  the  same  line.  With 
all  of  us  the  business  dies  with  the  fathers.  Is  this 
showing  a  capacity  to  build?" 

Again  referring  to  this  former  Negro  quarter  he  says  : 
"I  walked  for  blocks  and  blocks  recently  through  that 
district.  I  found  it  strewn  with  little  stores,  mainly  of 


156     The  American  Race  Problem 

produce,  native  and  foreign  ;  every  store  kept  by  an 
Italian  and  scarcely  one  in  which  there  was  not  a  Negro 
present  as  a  buyer.  One  place  only  was  kept  by  a  Negro, 
apparently,  and  that  was  a  pool  or  billiard  room  filled 
with  young  men  who  were  making  the  echoes  sound. 
The  guitar,  fiddle,  banjo,  melodeon,  and  even  piano, 
were  all  giving  evidence  of  happiness  and  contentment 
amongst  our  people;  but  the  Italian  was  doing  the 
business.  Certainly  these  gloomy  pictures  are  not  all 
that  the  Negro  has  to  show  in  forty  years  hereabouts, 
but  it  does  show  that  he  has  by  no  means  taken  advan 
tage  of  the  position  which  he  once  held.  If  we  were  at 
the  top  at  any  time  in  the  past  in  any  line  of  industry, 
why  are  we  at  the  bottom  of  it  to-day?  That  's  the 
question.  In  lines  concededly  belonging  to  the  Negro 
years  ago  he  has  been  entirely  superseded  by  the  Italian. 
How  far  in  this  direction  can  we  go  without  getting  off 
the  earth  entirely  ?  These  changes  the  Negro  cannot  lay 
to  colour  prejudice,  surely.  Using  this  as  a  basis  of 
calculation,  what  could  one  say  of  the  'Future  of  the 
American  Negro?'"* 

Along  the  same  line,  an  editorial  in  the  leading 
American  Negro  newspaper  declares  that  a  small  Italian 
colony  near  New  York,  under  the  observation  of  the 
writer,  had  "acquired  more  real  estate  and  developed 
more  business  interests  of  one  sort  and  another  in  the 
past  four  years  than  have  ten  times  as  many  Afro- 
Americans  in  the  same  locality  in  the  past  forty  years,  "f 


*  New  York  Age,  July  27,  iqos,  p.  7. 
t  Idem.,  Jan.  12,  1905.  p.  a. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    157 

If  we  go  to  Chicago,  we  find  the  same  testimony  from 
another  thoughtful  and  competent  observer,  Mrs, 
Fannie  Barrier  Williams.  She  writes  as  follows:  "It 
is  quite  safe  to  say  that  in  the  last  fifteen  years  the 
coloured  people  have  lost  about  every  occupation  that 
was  regarded  as  peculiarly  their  own.  Among  the  oc 
cupations  that  seem  to  be  permanently  lost  are  barber- 
ing,  bootblacking,  cooking,  hotel  and  restaurant  waiting, 
janitors  in  office  buildings,  elevator  service,  and  calci- 
mining." 

She  answers  her  own  question  as  to  the  cause  of  such 
loss  in  these  significant  words  :f  "White  men  wanted 
these  places  and  were  strong  enough  to  displace  the 
unorganised,  thoughtless  and  easy-going  occupants  of 
them.  When  the  hordes  of  Greeks,  Italians,  Swedes, 
and  other  foreign  folks  began  to  pour  into  Chicago, 
the  demand  for  the  Negro's  places  began.  One  occu 
pation  after  another  that  the  coloured  people  thought 
was  theirs  forever  by  a  sort  of  divine  right  fell  into 
the  hands  of  these  foreign  invaders.  This  loss  was 
not  so  much  due  to  prejudice  against  colour,  as  to 
the  ability  of  these  foreigners  to  increase  the  importance 
of  the  places  sought  and  captured.  The  Swedes  have 
captured  the  janitor  business  by  organising  and  train 
ing  the  men  for  this  work  in  such  a  way  as  to  increase 
the  efficiency  and  reliability  of  the  service.  White  men 
have  made  more  of  the  barber  business  than  did  the 
coloured  men,  and  by  organisation  have  driven  every 
Negro  barber  from  the  business  district.  The  '  shoe- 
polisher'  has  supplanted  the  Negro  bootblack,  and 


158     The  American  Race  Problem 

does  business  in  finely  appointed  parlours,  with  mahog 
any  finish  and  electric  lights.  Thus  a  menial  occupation 
has  become  a  well  organized  and  genteel  business  with 
capital  and  system  behind  it.  "* 

As  to  servant  girls  in  the  same  city,  Mrs.  Williams 
says  that  white  girls  prefer  to  pass  by  the  clerkship, 
which  coloured  girls  cannot  get,  and  enter  schools  of 
domestic  science  to  prepare  themselves  for  trained  do 
mestic  service,  and  to  fill  places  scorned  by  coloured 
girls  though  open  to  them.  "It  is  really  alarming," 
she  says,  "to  look  forward  to  the  next  decade,  when 
the  great  changes  now  going  on  in  the  field  of  domestic 
science  shall  have  been  worked  out  and  developed  into 
a  profession.  Where  will  our  girls  be?  Just  about 
in  the  position  of  our  barbers  in  the  large  cities,  who 
have  allowed  themselves  to  be  forced  into  the  menial 
service  of  blacking  shoes  and  brushing  the  clothes  of 
their  former  customers,  "f 

On  the  same  subject,  but  in  a  different  part  of  the 
country,  The  Richmond  Negro  Criterion  warns  the  Ne 
groes  that  they  are  losing  their  hold  upon  a,  to  them, 
vital  occupation.  It  says  :  "Our  young  women  must 
take  these  positions  while  they  can  get  them.  .  .  . 
We  are  told  that  they  (the  foreign  immigrants)  will  turn 
in  the  direction  of  the  South.  When  they  come,  woe, 
woe  to  the  Negro.  His  places  will  be  gone,  to  come  no 
more.  The  time  is  fast  approaching  when  domestic 
employment  for  females  of  our  race  will  be  as  far  gone  as 


*  New  York  Age,  June  15,  1905,  p.  a. 
t  Idem,  Sept.  28,  1905,  p.  7. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    159 

that  of  the  barber  and  those  who  formerly  worked  in 
the  factories."* 

The  New  York  Age  has  commented  editorially  on  the 
fact  that  Negroes  "in  the  Pullman  service  are  up  against 
the  relentless  competition  which  has  displaced  them  to 
such  a  disastrous  extent  in  the  hotel  and  restaurant 
service."  It  also  notes  the  fact  that  already  they  have 
been  supplanted  in  the  dining-car  service  of  some  of  the 
Northwestern  railroads. f  It  has  been  only  a  few  years 
since  an  effort  was  made  to  supplant  the  coloured  em 
ployees  of  the  New  York  Union  League  Club.  It  was 
an  open  secret  that  only  traditional  and  political  con 
siderations  caused  the  failure  of  the  movement. 

We  may  go  to  Kansas  and  hear  the  same  cry  of  the 
disastrous  results  of  white  competition.  The  Topeka 
bootblacks  have  been  supplanted  by  Greeks,  and  the 
Plaindealer  thus  accounts  for  the  change  :  "The  Negro 
is  the  best  bootblack.  .  .  .  but  he  studied  too  much 
about  baseball,  policy,  craps,  etc.,  and  not  enough  about 
the  comfort  of  his  patrons.  He  was  earning  enough  to 
make  him  feel  as  though  the  poeple  who  patronised  him 
were  under  obligations  to  him,  and  would  quit  working 
on  a  customer  to  jolly  with  a  bystander."! 

From  Massachusetts  comes  the  same  story,  with  the 
addition  of  other  factors  inimical  to  the  Negro's  future 
welfare.  In  a  discussion  of  the  economic  position  of 
the  Negro  in  Boston,  at  the  South  End  House,  in  April, 

*  Reproduced  and  endorsed  in  New  York  Age,  Sept.  28,  1905,  p.  4. 

t  New  York  Age,  June  8,  1905,  p.  2.  Since  this  paper  was  read  I  have  seen 
a  news  item  to  the  effect  that  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  has  introduced 
white  waiters  on  one  of  its  dining-cars. 

$  New  York  Age,  May  25,  1905,  p.  a. 


160     The  American  Race  Problem 

1905,  Mr.  John  Daniels  said :  "There  are  in  Boston  to 
day  probably  15,000  Negroes.  The  percentage  of  em 
ployment  among  them  is  larger  than  that  for  the  white 
population  as  a  whole,  or  for  any  element  of  it.  This 
statement,  however,  is  not  to  be  regarded  altogether 
optimistically.  In  the  first  place,  the  figures  showing 
percentage  of  employment  are  open  to  the  doubt  that 
most  figures  of  the  census  are  open  to.  Then  even  if 
the  figures  are  correct  they  go  to  show  how  much  the 
Negroes  have  to  work,  how  severe  the  economic  stress 
upon  them  is.  This  applies  especially  to  Negro  women, 
among  whom  the  percentage  of  employment  is  twice  as 
great  as  that  among  the  whites."  "  It  is  not  a  thing  to 
rejoice  over,"  continues  Mr.  Daniels,  "but  a  thing  to  be 
regretted,  that  so  many  Negro  women  have  to  work. 
Turning  now  to  the  kinds  of  work  the  Negroes  are  en 
gaged  in,  we  find  the  majority  of  them  engaged  in  the 
meaner  sorts  of  labour,  unskilled  labour,  for  the  most  part , 
and  commanding  only  the  pay  of  unskilled  labour.  We 
find  very  few  of  them  in  the  handicrafts  of  the  trades. 
The  problem  then,  is  not  so  much  to  get  more  work  as 
to  get  better  work."  At  the  same  meeting  the  Rev. 
Henry  J.  Callis,  a  coloured  minister,  made  the  statement 
that  to-day  in  the  city  of  Boston  "not  a  single  Negro 
church  building  is  owned  by  its  congregation.  "* 

We  have  the  same  testimony  on  the  condition  of  the 
Boston  Negro  as  regards  domestic  service  that  is  so 
abundant  on  the  question  of  his  practical  exclusion 
from  the  trades  and  handicrafts.  The  Bulletin  of  the 


*  New  York  Age.  May  4,  1905,  p.  i. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    161 

Inter-municipal  Committee  on  Household  Research  is 
authority  for  the  statement  that  the  Boston  Reform 
League  has  been  unable  to  secure  an  equal  chance  for 
coloured  girls  in  obtaining  employment,  and  cannot 
secure  places  for  more  than  half  who  apply.  We  are 
told  that  "Negroes  who  specialise  in  house  work  dupli 
cate  the  experience  of  a  coloured  butler  for  whom  the 
League  tried  for  three  months  to  find  a  place,  but  with 
out  success.  He  was  rieat  in  his  person  and  good  look 
ing,  and  was  highly  recommended.  He  stated  that  he 
had  answered,  in  all,  two  hundred  advertisements,  but 
he  was  invariably  refused  the  position  simply  because 
he  was  a  coloured  man.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  on  leaving  Boston  to  return  to  New  York,  he  said: 
'These  Boston  people  beat  me.  They  will  have  mass- 
meetings  and  raise  money  to  help  Mr.  Washington 
educate  the  "niggers"  down  South,  but  they  will  let 
a  decent  Northerner  starve  before  they  will  give  him  a 
chance  to  earn  an  honest  living.'"* 

Dr.  William  N.  DeBerry,  for  five  years  pastor  of  a 
coloured  Congregational  church  in  Springfield,  Mass., 
has  made  an  interesting  study  of  the  general  condition 
of  his  people  in  that  city.  I  cannot  go  into  the  details 
of  his  report,  but  he  speaks  in  very  plain  language 
of  the  effects  of  "prejudice  and  ostracism,"  "intense 
antipathy,"  and  kindred  race  feeling.  He  does  not  try 
to  minimise  the  faults  of  the  Negro,  but  speaks 
frankly  of  "the  malady  of  disunion,"  "bitter  intolerance 
and  strife"  in  their  religious  bodies,  and  of  "the  worth- 


*  JJulletin.     New  York  City,  May,  1905,  p.  15. 


1 6z     The  American  Race  Problem 

less  element,  with  no  visible  means  of  support."  It  is 
to  the  economic  feature  of  his  report  that  I  wish  to  call 
your  attention.  He  found  on  January  i,  1905,  a  Negro 
population  of  1,253,  with  375  men  and  533  women. 
He  enumerates  the  number  of  these  in  each  occupation, 
and  asks  the  question:  "Why  is  it  that  86  per  cent, 
of  the  coloured  labour  in  this  city  is  confined  to  the 
lower  strata  of  industry?"  His  answer  is  that  the 
large  number  who  "are  fitted  for  other  occupations  are 
debarred  by  pure  race  prejudice."  "Three  hundred 
and  twenty  black  men  out  of  375,"  he  continues,  "are 
confined  to  certain  servile  types  of  employment  in 
Springfield,  not  because  they  are  all  unfit  for  anything 
higher,  but  because  race  prejudice  has  closed  the  door 
of  industrial  opportunity  against  these  men  as  a  class. 
But  they  continue  to  knock  daily  at  this  closed  door  and 
plead  only  for  the  chance  to  fill  such  places  as  are  open 
where  the  service  they  can  render  is  in  demand."  He 
says  they  only  ask  "that  as  a  class  they  may  be  emanci 
pated  from  the  merciless  industrial  ostracism  which 
shuts  out  the  capable  and  worthy  Negro  because  God 
chose  to  create  him  black.  .  .  .  That  for  which 
they  most  earnestly  plead  at  the  hands  of  their  more 
favoured  fellow  citizens  is  merited  industrial  opportun 
ity."  And  Dr.  DeBerry  says  that  his  study  should  be 
"of  more  than  local  significance,  inasmuch  as  the 
situation  here  in  Springfield  is  fairly  typical  of  the 
black  man's  condition  throughout  the  North."* 


*  Springfield  Weekly  Republican,  Feb.  10,  1905.      I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  De 
Perry  for  a  copy  of  his  report. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    163 

Generally,  throughout  the  North,  as  Dr.  DeBerry 
tells  you,  the  story  is  the  same.  With  variations  of 
detail  we  find  practically  the  same  situation  presented 
in  New  York,  Chicago,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Springfield, 
and  sections  of  New  Jersey,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Kansas  and 
the  Northwest.  The  Negro  has  lost  ground.  In  a 
plea  for  industrial  education  and  opportunity,  Booker 
T.  Washington  says:  "No  one  can  fully  appreciate 
what  I  am  saying  who  has  not  walked  the  streets  of  a 
Northern  city  day  after  day  seeking  employment,  only 
to  find  every  door  closed  against  him  on  account  of 
his  colour,  except  in  menial  service."*  We  need  hardly 
seek  for  further  cumulative  evidence  on  a  fact  now 
admitted  by  all  save  the  ignorant;  viz.,  that  in  the 
Northern  section  of  our  country,  with  all  its  wealth, 
with  all  its  splendid  industrial  achievement,  with  all 
its  promise  to  the  child  of  the  white  man,  the  door  of 
economic  opportunity  is  closed  before  the  faces  of  the 
masses  of  the  Negro  race,  even  though  it  reluctantly 
yield  to  the  knock  of  the  chosen  few. 

There  seem  to  be  two  contributing  causes  to  this 
situation:  inefficiency,  unreliability,  and  lack  of  thrift 
upon  the  part  of  the  Negro,  and  prejudice  upon  the 
part  of  the  white  man.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  weigh 
the  one  against  the  other,  to  see  where  the  greater 
responsibility  lies.  Upon  the  statements  of  eminent 
Negro  authorities  their  people  have  themselves  to  blame 
certainly  in  very  great  measure.  I  can  hardly  believe 
that  any  considerable  body  of  labouring  men,  regardless 

*  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  76. 


164     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  colour  or  race,  anywhere  have  ever  been  successfully 
and  permanently  deprived  of  their  opportunities  by 
any  other  body  of  men,  unless  the  latter  proved  them 
selves  the  more  competent  to  do  the  work  sought  by 
the  two. 

It  would  seem  then  that  it  is  to  the  South  that  the 
Negro  masses  must  look  for  their  economic  salvation. 
As  I  have  quoted  Booker  T.  Washington  on  the  North 
ern  situation,  I  may  quote  him  now  on  the  Southern. 
Of  the  latter  he  says:  "Whatever  other  sins  the  South 
may  be  called  upon  to  bear,  when  it  comes  to  business, 
pure  and  simple,  it  is  in  the  South  that  the  Negro  is 
given  a  man's  chance  in  the  commercial  world."* 
Again,  he  says:  "  It  has  been  my  privilege  to  study  the 
condition  of  my  people  in  nearly  every  part  of  America ; 
and  I  say,  without  hesitation,  that,  with  some  excep 
tional  cases,  the  Negro  is  at  his  best  in  the  Southern 
states,  "f 

For  some  years  I  have  attempted  to  study  the  social 
and  economic  relations  between  white  and  black  races 
wherever  they  come  in  contact,  but  have  not  amalga 
mated,  as  in  this  country,  some  of  the  West  Indies, 
Africa,  and  Australia,  and  I  have  only  to  confirm  Mr. 
Washington's  opinion.  To  me  it  seems  that  the  plain 
est  fact  to-day  confronting  the  Negro  is  that  there  is 
but  one  area  of  any  size  in  the  world  wherein  his  race 
may  obey  the  command  to  eat  its  bread  in  the  sweat 
of  its  face,  side  by  side  with  the  white  man.  That 


*  Up  from  Slavery,  pp.  219,  220. 

t  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  202. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    165 

area  is  composed  of  the  Southern  United  States.  I 
cannot  go  into  details  and  sift  the  evidence  for  you. 
You  may  find  it  in  the  observations  of  travellers,  dis 
tinguished  and  obscure,  in  the  writings  of  resident  and 
foreign  historians,  economists,  and  sociologists,  in  the 
complaints  of  the  black  man  and  his  friends,  in  the 
enactment  of  laws  and  the  recorded  operations  of 
prejudice.  The  evidence  is  voluminous,  and  it  seems 
to  me  conclusive,  that  only  in  the  land  wherein  for  so 
many  years  the  world  has  been  taught  to  believe  that 
"the  white  man  despises  manual  labour,"  may  the  black 
man  work  by  his  side. 

Washington  says  that  "wherever  the  Negro  has  lost 
ground  industrially  in  the  South,  it  is  not  because 
there  is  prejudice  against  him  as  a  skilled  labourer  on 
the  part  of  the  native  Southern  white  man."*  This 
absence  of  prejudice  applies  in  the  case  of  the  skilled 
white  Southern  labourer  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  the 
employer  of  such  labour.  This  is  not  difficult  to  account 
for.  Here  is  where  the  Negro  profits  by  the  drawing  of 
the  general  Southern  colour  line;  through  this  and  the 
obliterating  effect  of  generations  of  contact  upon  what 
would  elsewhere  seem  to  be  natural  repugnance  to 
physical  association.  The  white  mason  and  carpenter 
work  side  by  side  with  the  Negro  because  they  know 
that  that  line  exists  for  them  just  exactly  as  it  does  for 
the  lawyer  or  doctor.  The  Negro  recognises  that  the 
white  man  is  not  lowered  one  particle  in  the  estimation 
of  the  community  because  of  his  occupation.  Each 

*  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  78. 


i66     The  American  Race  Problem 

knows  that  the  status  of  the  other  remains  unchanged  — 
the  Negro  is  still  a  Negro,  the  white  man  still  a  white  man. 

In  a  country  where  lines  are  drawn  between  races 
this  has  its  significance;  in  one  where  the  line  is  not 
racial,  but  is  drawn  between  occupations,  or  depends 
upon  wealth  or  other  conditions,  it  would  have  no  such 
significance.  Mr.  Bryce  speaks  of  race  feeling  and  the 
drawing  of  the  colour  line  in  South  Africa.  He  relates 
the  incident  of  a  white  man  accepting  employment 
under  a  native  of  means,  but  only  on  condition  that 
the  latter  call  him  "boss."  This  may  have  been  in 
comprehensible  to  Mr.  Bryce,  but  a  Southern  man 
would  have  known  what  was  going  on  in  the  white 
colonist's  mind.  It  is  my  explanation  over  again. 
As  long  as  he  had  verbal  evidence  that  the  native  Negro 
still  recognised  the  racial  difference  between  them, 
that  one  was  still  white  and  the  other  still  black,  he  had 
no  objection  to  the  altered  outward  relation. 

But  while  we  may  be  interested  in  this,  as  in  any 
other  abstract  racial  phenomenon,  for  the  Negro  the 
cause  of  the  condition  is  of  less  importance  than  is  the 
duration  of  the  condition  itself.  How  long  will  it  be 
before  the  Northern  attitude  impresses  itself  upon  the 
Southern  racial  industrial  situation,  or  the  Northern 
situation  is  reproduced  in  the  South?  This  is  difficult 
to  answer,  but  we  may  see  two  principal  causes  operat 
ing  in  this  direction.  One  of  these  is  the  general  spread 
of  trade  unions  in  the  South,  the  other  is  an  increasing 
demand  for  better  industrial  service  than  the  South 
hitherto  has  been  satisfied  with  from  the  Negro. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    167 

As  to  the  second  of  these  influences  a  discussion  which 
throws  some  light  upon  the  Northern  situation  is  also 
suggestive  of  the  probable  course  of  Southern  people, 
if  they  should  ever  awaken  to  a  realisation  of  the  differ 
ence  between  competent  and  incompetent  service. 
Speaking  of  the  disastrous  loss  of  employment  by  the 
Boston  Negro,  Mr.  Archibald  H.  Grimke,  of  that  city, 
states  that  it  is  not  due  entirely  to  prejudice,  though  he 
says  that  "all  things  being  equal,  the  average  Northern 
white  man  prefers  to  be  served  by  waiters  of  his  own 
race  and  colour."  He  says:  "The  battle  for  employ 
ment,  for  bread,  has  gone  against  us  as  a  race  at  these 
three  points  in  the  domestic  and  hotel  service  of  Boston. 
At  one  point  our  service  body  has  been  almost  wiped 
out,  while  in  the  others  we  are  yielding  ground,  and 
have  been  doing  so  for  years,  before  aggressions  of 
white  servant  bodies."  Summing  up  the  various  causes 
behind  this  loss,  he  says:  "The  coloured  coachman 
got  a  black  eye  when  people  began  to  travel  abroad 
and  to  discover  in  England,  for  instance,  how  much 
more  an  English  coachman  knows  about  horses 
and  their  care  than  a  coloured  one  in  Boston.  The 
English  coachman  not  only  knows  how  to  sit  on  his 
box  and  hold  the  ribbons  with  style,  but  he  is  a  master 
of  horse  lore.  He  keeps  abreast  with  up-to-date 
methods  and  utilities  in  his  world.  He  is,  in  fact,  a 
horse  doctor  of  no  mean  attainments  and  skill.  He 
has  fitted  himself  to  do  his  work  not  in  one  line  only 
but  in  an  all-round  way.  And  as  the  coloured  coach 
man  was  inferior  to  him  in  this  respect,  he  had  only  to 


i68     The  American  Race  Problem 

come  and  see  and  conquer  wherever  he  and  his  coloured 
competitor  engaged  each  other  in  the  struggle  for 
employment,  for  bread."* 

Apropos  of  horses  and  coachman,  it  may  be  remarked 
that  another  striking  loss  suffered  by  the  Negro  is  in 
the  almost  total  displacing  of  the  coloured  jockey  by 
the  white  within  the  last  twenty  years. 

Among  Southern  men  who  patronise  barber  shops 
there  are  the  fewest  number  who  will  go  to  one  con 
ducted  by  Negroes  after  having  once  tried  "white 
shops."  This  is  true  despite  the  deep-rooted  general 
Southern  prejudice  in  favour  of  the  Negro  for  all  forms 
of  personal  service.  What  is  true  in  the  case  of  the 
barber  is  likely  to  be  repeated  in  other  lines  of  work, 
more  or  less  associated,  when  Southern  people  begin  to 
learn,  as  the  Northern  did  long  ago,  that  the  Negro  is 
not  the  only  race  on  earth  engaged  in  such  occupations. 

The  opposition  of  the  union  is  as  old  as  the  freedom 
of  the  Negro,  but  it  is  difficult  to  measure  the  rapidity 
of  its  progress.  Mr.  Washington  declares  that  the 
absence  of  industrial  prejudice  at  the  South  furnishes 
"the  entering  wedge  for  the  solution  of  the  race  prob 
lem."  "But  too  often,"  he  says,  "where  the  white 
mechanic  or  factory  operative  from  the  North  gets  a 
hold  the  trade  union  soon  follows,  and  the  Negro  is 
crowded  to  the  wall."f  He  candidly  acknowledges 
that  in  no  part  of  the  South  is  the  Negro  "so  strong  in 
the  matter  of  skilled  labour  as  he  was  twenty  years  ago." 


*  New  York  Age,  October  5,  iQ°5,  P-  3- 
f  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  79. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    169 

We  need  not  be  surprised  that  so  far  seeing  a  man 
watches  with  what  we  may  well  believe  is  genuine  appre 
hension  the  slow  but  steady  encroachment  of  Northern 
white  men  and  foreigners  upon  the  Negro's  ancient 
Southern  stronghold.  Nor  to  hear  him  reiterate,  time 
and  again,  such  expressions  as  those  in  an  address  before 
the  American  Academy,  in  Philadelphia,  last  February: 
"In  many  respects,"  he  said,  "the  next  twenty  years 
are  going  to  be  the  most  serious  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  Within  this  period  it  will  be  largely  decided 
whether  the  Negro  is  going  to  be  able  to  retain  the 
hold  which  he  now  has  upon  the  industries  of  the  South 
or  whether  his  place  will  be  filled  by  white  people  from 
a  distance."* 

A  few  years  ago  I  happened  to  be  in  the  office  of  a 
leading  contractor  in  my  town  when  he  was  discussing 
the  erection  of  a  local  cold  storage  plant  with  a  repre 
sentative  of  a  Chicago  packing  house.  The  Chicago 
man  broached  the  question  of  the  kind  of  labour  to  be 
used  on  the  building.  The  contractor  told  him,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  course,  that  it  would  be  Negro  labour,  as 
practically  his  entire  force  was  so  constituted.  The 
Chicago  party  said  that  if  this  got  back  home  all  the 
carpenters  they  had  from  Chicago  to  Omaha  would 
strike.  The  contractor  replied  that  we  had  no  labour 
unions,  that  he  employed  whom  he  pleased,  and  that  it 
was  Negro  labour  or  nothing.  Suppose  such  a  situation 
should  arise  in  a  Northern  town,  if  indeed  enough 
Negro  carpenters  could  be  found  to  make  it  possible. 

*  Same  language  in  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  75. 


170 


The  American  Race  Problem 


The  result  would  be  the  discharge  of  the  coloured  car 
penters.  How  long  will  it  be  before  the  same  story 
shall  be  told  in  the  South? 

There  is  evidence  that  the  tide  of  industrial  ostra 
cism  of  the  skilled  Negro  is  turning  southward.  After 
the  great  fire  in  Baltimore  I  was  somewhat  curious  to  see 
the  part  which  the  eighty-odd  thousand  Negroes  in  its 
population  would  take,  or  be  permitted  to  take,  in  its  re 
building.  During  the  twelve  months  following  the 
fire  I  visited  Baltimore  a  number  of  times,  and  on 
each  occasion  spent  considerable  time  in  research  work 
in  the  burned  district.  I  was  hunting  for  a  Negro 
mason,  or  carpenter,  or  plumber  —  but  if  he  was 
there,  I  failed  to  discover  him.  And  yet  labour 
had  been  draughted  for  this  emergency  work  from  every 
city  in  the  North  and  East.  I  found  him  only  as  a  hod 
carrier,  or  employed  in  wheeling  away  debris.  In  Wash 
ington  last  March  I  watched  the  erection  of  a  great  plat 
form  on  the  east  plaza  of  the  Capitol,  with  a  seating 
capacity  of  five  thousand  people.  Upon  it  was  to 
stand,  while  taking  the  oath  of  office,  the  man  who 
more  than  any  other  recent  American  has  been  held  in 
the  public  eye  as  the  exponent  of  the  square  deal  — 
for  the  Negro  as  well  as  for  the  rest  of  us.  Yet  in  all 
that  work  no  Negro  found  employment,  save  in  some 
menial  capacity. 

How  far  this  movement  shall  extend  before  it  is 
arrested,  or  whether  or  not  it  will  ever  be  arrested  at 
all,  are  questions  upon  which  I  shall  not  stop  to  specu 
late.  Perhaps  your  own  conclusions  may  be  aided 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    171 

somewhat  by  those  of  the  best  living  authority  on 
American  Negro  statistics,  carefully  and  conservatively 
stated  as  they  are,  for  the  decade  ending  with  1900. 
In  stating  the  loss  and  gain  of  the  Negro  in  industrial 
pursuits  during  this  period,  Professor  Walter  F.  Willcox 
thus  closes  the  account:  "He  has  lost  ground  in  the 
South  as  a  whole  in  the  following  skilled  occupations: 
carpenter,  barber,  tobacco  and  cigar  factory  operative, 
fisherman,  engineer  or  fireman  (not  locomotive),  and 
probably  blacksmith.  He  has  lost  ground  also  in  the 
following  industries  in  which  the  degree  of  skill  implied 
seems  somewhat  uncertain:  laundry  work,  hackman 
or  teamster,  steam  railroad  employee,  housekeeper  or 
steward."  "The  balance  seems  not  favourable,"  he 
says.  "It  suggests  that  in  the  competition  with  white 
labour  to  which  the  Negro  is  being  subjected  he  has  not 
quite  held  his  own."* 

If  we  may  predict  with  reasonable  certainty  anything 
whatever  of  the  future  of  the  Negro,  it  seems  safe  to 
lay  down  the  elementary  proposition  that  the  home  of 
the  masses  of  the  race  must  remain  in  the  Southern 
states,  and  that  their  destiny  must  be  worked  out  upon 
the  soil.  Their  wisest  leaders  apparently  are  in  accord 
upon  this  point.  Says  Mr.  Washington:  "More  and 
more  each  year,  I  feel  that  .  .  .  the  salvation  of 
my  race  will  largely  rest  upon  its  ability  and  willingness 
to  secure  and  cultivate  properly  the  soil."f 

The   field   of   the   Negro's   activities   thus   becomes 


*  pp.  493-494 

t  Annual  Report,  May  30,  1901,  p.  8. 


172     The  American  Race  Problem 

doubly  circumscribed,  and  the  fixing  of  his  hold  upon 
that  field  ceases  longer  to  remain  a  mere  question  of 
expediency  and  wisdom.  It  becomes  a  matter  of  vital 
moment  and  racial  concern.  It  is  here  that  the  masses 
will  have  to  meet  the  crucial  test  of  the  future.  Here, 
in  the  field  that  has  been  the  Negro's  for  so  many  genera 
tions,  I  believe  is  to  be  witnessed  some  day  the  ultimate 
economic  struggle  in  America  between  the  Negro  and 
the  white  man.  Mr.  Washington  says  that  he  does 
not  believe  that  "the  masses  of  coloured  people  are  yet 
fitted  to  survive  and  prosper  in  the  great  Northern 
cities  to  which  so  many  of  them  are  crowding.  The 
temptations  are  too  great,"  he  says,  "and  the  competi 
tion  with  the  foreign  population,  with  which  they  there 
come  in  contact,  is  too  fierce."*  The  tide  of  immigra 
tion  is  turning  slowly  southward,  and  in  my  judgment 
the  competition  of  the  cities  of  the  North  is  to  be  re 
peated  in  Southern  fields.  Mr.  Washington  sees  this 
coming,  if  I  read  his  words  aright,  for  he  thus  warns  his 
people:  "If  we  neglect  to  occupy  the  field  that  is  now 
before  us  in  the  South,  it  will  become  there  as  it  is  in 
the  North  —  we  will  be  excluded  by  those  who  are 
strangers  to  our  tongue  and  customs,  "f 

More  than  twenty-five  years  ago  Frederick  Douglass 
took  the  so-called  Kansas  exodus  of  Southern  Negroes 
for  the  text  of  an  exultantly  boastful  address  on  the 
dependence  of  the  South  upon  the  Negro.  His  words 
and  predictions  are  of  peculiar  interest  now,  as  a  sort  of 


*  Charities,  October  7,  1905,  p.  19. 
t  Idem.  p.  17. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    173 

warning  to  sociologists  to  avoid  the  shoals  of  prophecy. 
"Only  a  few  years  of  non-tillage,"  he  said,  "would  be 
needed  to  give  the  sunny  and  fruitful  South  to  the  bats 
and  owls  of  a  desolate  wilderness.  From  this  con 
dition,  shocking  for  a  Southern  man  to  contemplate,  it 
is  now  seen  that  nothing  less  powerful  than  the  naked 
iron  arm  of  the  Negro  can  save  her.  For  him  as  a 
Southern  labourer,  there  is  no  competitor  or  substitute. 
The  thought  of  filling  his  place  by  any  other  variety  of 
the  human  family  will  be  found  delusive  and  utterly 
impracticable.  Neither  Chinaman,  German,  Norwegian, 
nor  Swede  can  drive  him  from  the  sugar  and  cotton 
fields  of  Louisiana  and  Mississippi.  They  would  cer 
tainly  perish  in  the  black  bottoms  of  these  states  if 
they  could  be  induced,  which  they  cannot,  to  try  the 
experiment.  .  .  .  Hence  it  is  seen  that  the  depend 
ence  of  the  planters,  land-owners,  and  old  master-class  of 
the  South  upon  the  Negro,  however  galling  and  humili 
ating  to  Southern  pride  and  power,  is  nearly  complete 
and  perfect.  .  .  .  He  stands  to-day  the  admitted 
author  of  whatever  prosperity,  beauty,  and  civilization 
are  now  possessed  by  the  South,  and  the  admitted 
arbiter  of  her  destiny."* 

-\ 

*  "Life  and  Times,"  Hartford,  1881,  pp.  437  and  438.  In  its  immediate  \ 
contrast  to  this  statement  of  Frederick  Douglass,  the  following,  which  I 
am  permitted  to  quote  from  a  personal  letter  from  Professor  Willcox,  is  in 
teresting  and  significant:  "Perhaps  you  have  noticed  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  Italians  have  been  getting  into  the  sugar  cane  districts  of  Louisi 
ana.  My  attention  was  called  to  it  to-day  by  noticing  the  statement  in  the 
report  of  the  Industrial  Commission  that  'the  Italians  of  those  states  (Missis 
sippi  and  Louisiana)  are  rapidly  dislodging  the  Negroes  from  the  sugar  cane 
plantations. '  I  have  picked  out  the  five  parishes  of  Louisiana  each  of  which 
had  more  than  20,000  acres  in  cane  in  1899.  These  five  had  54  per  cent,  of  the 
total  sugar  cane  area  of  the  state.  In  1890  they  included  960  Italians,  or  12  per 


The  American  Race  Problem 


About  twelve  years  after  this  dogmatic  proposition 
was  enunciated  I  had  occasion  to  investigate  the  con 
dition  of  a  few  Italian  families  living  in  my  section  of 
Mississippi.  This  is  a  region  which  for  years  was  con 
sidered  the  Negro's  impregnable  stronghold,  the  one 
place,  indeed,  wherein  his  freedom  from  competition 
and  the  white  man's  dependence  upon  him  were  as  ab 
solute  as  Douglass  imagined.  Before  this  my  attention 
had  been  attracted  by  a  reference  of  John  Stuart  Mill 
to  the  achievements  of  the  Italian  metayer.  I,  too, 
wrote  an  article  and  indulged  in  a  little  prophecy.  As 
the  latter  happens  to  have  been  verified,  I  am  willing 
to  resurrect  it.  It  was  that  within  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  we  would  see  the  white  man's  ability  to  more  than 
successfully  compete  with  the  Negro  in  the  latter's 
strongest  field  demonstrated  through  the  medium  of 
the  peasant  farmers  of  Italy.  My  prediction  was  ridi 
culed  by  newspapers,  North  and  South,  and  even  many 
of  my  friends  thought  I  was  indulging  in  impossible 
theorisings.  For  Douglass's  idea,  not  mine,  was  the 
popular  one.  It  has  been  the  curse  of  the  South  for  a 
hundred  years  that  her  people  have  clung  tenaciously 
and  stubbornly  to  a  conviction,  never  reasonable  or  well 
founded,  that  Negro  labor  was  essential  to  the  cultiva 
tion  of  her  soil.  Douglass  simply  gave  expression  in 


cent,  of  the  total  number  in  the  state.  In  1900  they  contained  5,007  Italians, 
or  29  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  in  the  state.  In  each  parish  also  the  per  cent. 
of  Negroes  in  the  total  population  decreased,  and  in  four  out  of  the  five  decreased 
more  rapidly  than  the  average  for  the  whole  state."  The  parishes  in  question 
are  St.  Mary,  Lafourche,  Assumption,  Terrebonne,  and  St.  James.  It  is  some 
what  curious  that  in  enumerating  the  various  people  who  could  not  compete 
with  the  Negro  in  the  South  Douglass  should  have  overlooked  the  Italian. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    175 

offensive  and  exaggerated  terms  to  a  belief  which  in 
its  essentials  had  for  years  been  a  tenet  of  Southern 
political  and  economic  faith. 

No  wisdom  was  necessary  to  such  a  forecast  as  I  made. 
Common  sense,  an  acquaintance  with  what  the  Italian 
agriculturist  had  accomplished  at  home  under  a  far  less 
favourable  natural  environment,  and  a  long  and  intimate 
familiarity  with  the  Negro  farmer  —  only  these  were 
required.  No  great  credit  may  be  claimed  for  simply 
pointing  out  the  probable  outcome  of  a  contest  between 
thrift  and  improvidence,  between  steady,  continuous, 
intelligent  labour,  and  the  mere  brute  strength  of  the 
Negro's  "naked  iron  arm,"  spasmodically  and  shiftlessly 
applied.  Do  not  understand  me  as  suggesting  that  any 
sudden  revolution  in  Southern  agricultural  and  indus 
trial  conditions  is  about  to  take  place.  Thousands,  I  : 
might  say  hundreds  of  thousands,  of  Southern  white 
men  prefer  the  Negro,  under  any  and  all  circumstances,  . 
to  any  class  of  white  labour.  The  problem  for  the  Negro 
is  a  larger  one  than  that;  it  is  whether  in  the  years  to 
come  he  is  to  acquire  his  share  of  the  soil;  whether  he 
or  the  white  man  is  to  bring  and  hold  under  the  sub 
jection  of  the  plough  the  millions  of  now  undeveloped 
acres  of  the  South;  whether  in  the  progress  of  what 
seems  destined  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  economic 
developments  America  or  the  world  has  seen,  he  is  to 
play  the  part  of  an  active,  forceful,  dominant,  con 
tributing  factor  and  beneficiary,  or  is  to  be  a  mere 
hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water,  content  with  felling 
the  trees  for  others  to  reap  the  reward.  We  are  now 


176     The  American  Race  Problem 

merely  at  the  insignificant  beginning  of  a  movement  of 
the  years,  the  very  opening  of  a  struggle  between  white 
and  black  in  which  there  will  be  no  element  of  sentiment, 
where  sympathy  will  have  no  place,  where  the  Negro 
will  be  called  upon  to  prove  his  right  to  live,  or  accept 
the  consequences  of  failure  —  where  "success"  will  be 
"equality's"  one  and  only  test.  The  contest  will  not 
be  in  the  slums  and  alleys  of  the  city.  It  will  be  fought 
out  in  the  open  field,  under  the  sun  and  upon  the  soil  — 
where  the  world  may  look  on. 

It  is  only  in  the  last  few  years  that  we  have  begun 
to  approach  such  questions  as  the  one  before  us  with  a 
determination  to  sift  the  evidence  with  the  sole  object 
of  learning  the  truth.  In  consequence,  as  yet  we  have 
little  comparative  data  at  hand,  and  few  widely  separ 
ated  local  studies,  upon  which  to  base  safe  conclusions. 
We  have  a  great  deal  to  learn  along  this  line,  and  sweep 
ing  generalisations  are  worth  but  little  when  it  comes  to 
testing  the  economic  efficiency  of  a  race.  But  in  the 
light  of  what  we  know  of  the  results  of  competition 
along  industrial  lines,  we  may  be  justified  in  hazarding 
a  few  speculations  as  to  the  outcome  of  such  a  contest 
in  the  field  of  agriculture. 

Professor  Willcox  properly  says  that  the  most  import 
ant  occupations  for  Negroes  are  those  of  "agricultural 
labourers,  farmers,  planters  and  overseers,  and  labourers 
not  specified."  These  occupations  "include  two-thirds 
of  all  the  Negro  breadwinners."  Some  light  is  thrown 
upon  the  matter  of  competition  along  these  lines  by  Pro 
fessor  Willcox's  statement  that  the  Southern  Negroes  so 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    177 

occupied  "increased  between  1890  and  1900  by  30.4  per 
cent.,  the  Southern  whites  in  the  same  occupations  in 
creasing  in  the  same  period  by  43.5  per  cent.  As  a 
result,  the  non-Caucasians  constituted  in  1890  44.4  per 
cent,  of  the  population  in  these  classes,  while  in  1900 
they  constituted  42.0  per  cent."*  While  such  figures 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  already  the  white  agri 
culturist  is  gaining  on  the  Negro  numerically,  they 
furnish  no  warrant  for  assuming  that  the  Negro's  posi 
tion  is  thereby  necessarily  seriously  threatened.  They 
tell  us  nothing  of  the  comparative  efficiency  of  the  two 
classes  —  one  of  the  most  important  tests  by  which  to 
measure  the  probable  outcome  of  competition. 

The  President  of  the  Mississippi  Agricultural  and 
Mechanical  College  has  contributed  something  toward 
assisting  us  in  forming  an  opinion  on  this  matter  of 
efficiency  in  a  study  of  conditions  in  several  Mississippi 
counties.  "Lowndes  county,  with  three  Negroes  to  one 
white  man,  having  21,972  blacks  and  7,121  whites,  re 
quires  3.15  acres  to  make  a  bale  of  cotton,  while  Jones 
county,  with  three  whites  to  one  Negro,  having  13,156 
whites  and  4,670  blacks,  requires  1.98  acres  to  make  a 
bale.  The  farm  lands  of  Jones  county  are  valued,  as 
found  in  the  census  reports,  at  $2.85  an  acre,  and  the 
farm  lands  of  Lowndes  county  are  valued  at  $9.83  an 
acre.  Yet  the  poor  lands  of  Jones  county,  under  intel 
ligent  cultivation,  produced  nearly  twice  as  much  per 
acre  as  the  rich  lands  of  Lowndes  county  when  culti 
vated  mostly  by  Negroes.  Noxubee  county,  with  more 

*  P.  489 


178     The  American  Race  Problem 

than  five  blacks  to  one  white,  having  26,146  blacks  and 
4,699  whites,  requires  3.50  acres  to  make  a  bale  of  cotton, 
while  Union  county,  with  three  whites  to  one  black, 
having  12,380  whites  and  4,142  blacks,  requires  only 
2.56  acres  to  make  a  bale.  The  farm  lands  of  Noxubee 
county  are  valued  at  $7.12  and  the  lands  of  Union  are 
valued  at  $4.81.  Hinds  county,  with  three  Negroes  to 
one  white  man,  having  39,521  blacks  and  13,037  whites, 
requires  2,50  acres  to  make  a  bale,  while  Perry  county, 
with  more  than  two  whites  to  one  Negro,  requires  only 
1.96  acres  to  make  a  bale.  The  farms  lands  of  Hinds 
are  valued  at  three  times  as  much  as  are  those  of  Perry. 
In  the  counties  of  Leflore,  Bolivar,  and  Washington, 
where  they  have  about  eight  Negroes  to  one  white  man, 
but  almost  without  exception  the  Negroes  are  under 
white  managers,  they  make  one  bale  to  every  acre  and 
a-half,  while  in  Lowndes,  Noxubee,  and  Monroe,  where 
not  many  white  managers  are  employed,  they  make  on 
an  average  about  one  bale  to  three  acres.  While  this 
difference  is  partly  caused  by  a  difference  in  the  fertility 
of  the  two  groups  of  three  counties,  yet  the  principal 
reason  is  the  superior  intelligence  used  in  the  man 
agement  of  the  first  group.  This  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  in  every  comparison  made  between  a  white 
county  and  a  black  one  the  black  was  the  most  fertile, 
^  yet  the  white  was  nearly  twice  as  productive."* 

The  necessity  and  effect  of  some  form  of  white  super 
vision  of  Negro  farm  labour,  as  alluded  to  by  President 


*  Professor  J.  C.  Hardy  in  "The  South 's  Supremacy  in   Cotton  Growing," 
p.  9,  Manufacturers  Record  Publishing  Company,  Baltimore  Md, 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    179 

Hardy,  are  now  recognised  throughout  the  South, 'where- 
ever  such  labour  receives  from  white  merchants  or 
planters  advances  of  cash  or  supplies.  Many  thousands 
of  Negroes  who  appear  in  a  census  enumeration  as 
"farmers"  really  work  under  the  constant  and  im 
mediate  supervision  of  a  plantation  owner  or  manager. 
Thousands  of  others,  similarly  enumerated,  are  under 
either  the  general  and  occasional  supervision  of  a 
"riding  boss"  or  some  other  form  of  crop  inspection. 
A  number  of  years  of  observation,  and  a  correspondence 
covering  the  entire  cotton  belt,  satisfy  me  that  such 
supervision  is  steadily  becoming  more  generally  rec 
ognised  as  a  necessary  incident  to  the  business  of 
advancing  to,  or  operating  with,  Negro  labour. 

Mr.  Kelsey,  in  his  very  valuable  monograph  thus 
alludes  to  this  system  :  "The  landlord  and  the  advan 
cers  have  found  it  necessary  to  spend  a  large  part  of 
their  time  personally,  or  through  agents  called  'riders, ' 
going  about  the  plantation  to  see  that  the  crops  are 
cultivated.  The  Negro  knows  how  to  raise  cotton,  but 
he  may  forget  to  plough,  chop,  or  some  other  such  trifle, 
unless  reminded  of  the  necessity."*  I  recently  asked 
a  friend  who  has  lately  begun  to  introduce  Italians  on 
his  plantation,  in  what  particular  respect  he  most  pre 
ferred  them  to  Negro  labour.  His  reply  was:  "I  don't 
have  to  spend  my  life  in  trying  to  make  them  work. 
After  the  first  year  I  don't  even  have  to  show  them 
what  to  do." 

As  in  this  paper  it  is  the  white  immigrant,  and  more 

*  "The  Negro  Farmer,"  p.  30. 


i8o     The  American  Race  Problem 

particularly  the  Italian,  whom  I  have  in  mind  as  the 
possible  competitor  of  the  Southern  Negro,  I  have  been 
to  considerable  pains  in  personally  investigating  the 
efficiency  and  general  economic  condition  of  the  largest 
group  of  cotton  growing  Italians  which  I  have  been  able 
to  discover.  This  probably  is  the  most  important  ex 
periment  of  its  kind  in  the  South  —  for  the  reason  that 
it  is  not  only  the  largest  but  also  the  oldest  —  and, 
further,  because  it  has  been  the  subject  of  a  great  deal 
of  discussion.  Repeatedly  it  has  been  pronounced  a 
failure  by  men  and  writers  who  could  have  had  no  first 
hand  information  concerning  it.  I  have  reference  to 
the  colony  at  Sunny  Side,  Chicot  County,  Arkansas, 
on  the  Mississippi  River,  between  Memphis  and  Vicks- 
burg,  and  nearly  opposite  Greenville,  Miss. 

I  need  not  go  into  the  details  of  the  early  history  of 
this  experiment.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  had  its 
inception  in  the  plan  of  the  late  Austin  Corbin,  of  New 
York,  to  sell  to  Italians  a  large  body  of  cotton  land  in 
Arkansas.  Through  no  fault  of  Mr.  Corbin's  the 
Italians  sent  over  as  purchasers  consisted  of  families 
representing  a  number  of  heterogeneous  occupations, 
instead  of  being  taken  solely  from  the  farming  class. 

If  I  were  to  attempt  to  make  a  cotton  crop  in  Mississippi 
with  a  lot  of  Negro  oyster  shuckers  gathered  along  the 
Maryland  and  Virginia  coasts,  failure  would  be  stamped 
upon  the  experiment  before  it  was  forty-eight  hours 
old.  Italian  fruit  venders,  cobblers,  and  organ  grind 
ers  are  no  more  farmers  than  are  Negro  oyster  shuckers. 
There  may  have  been  incidental  faults  of  manage- 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    181 

ment  also,  but  they  do  not  concern  us.  Mr.  Corbin  died, 
and  his  experiment  was  pronounced  a  failure.  One  more 
prop  had  been  placed  behind  the  wall  of  the  American 
superstition  of  the  eternal  and  necessary  conjunction  of 
a  Negro  and  a  mule  for  the  production  of  a  bale  of  cotton. 

Of  those  families  who  left  some  went  in  one  direction, 
some  in  another.  A  number  of  them  settled  about 
seventy  miles  from  Fort  Smith,  Ark.,  and  founded 
what  is  now  the  flourishing  and  growing  colony  of 
Tontitown.  In  1898  a  business  arrangement  was 
entered  into  between  the  Sunny  Side  Company  and 
Messrs.  O.  B.  Crittenden  &  Co.,  cotton  factors,  of 
Greenville,  Miss.,  and  the  active  management  of  the 
property  passed  into  the  control  of  experienced  resident 
cotton  planters.  These  gentlemen  were  business  men, 
pure  and  simple,  and  with  them  the  whole  matter  was, 
and  is,  solely  a  business  proposition.  They  knew  nothing 
of  the  Italian  and  cared  nothing,  from  any  sentimental 
or  altruistic  standpoint.  They  were  not  engaged  in  an 
attempt  either  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  distribution 
of  our  foreign  immigration,  or  to  relieve  the  congestion 
of  New  York  tenement  districts.  I  doubt  if  any  mem 
ber  of  the  firm  had  ever  read  "How  the  Other  Half 
Lives."  On  the  other  hand,  they  did  know  a  great  deal 
about  the  plantation  Negro.  But  neither  were  they 
engaged  in  any  philanthropic  experiment  in  this  line. 
They  simply  took  the  two  as  they  found  them,  without 
favour  or  prejuidce  on  either  side  — save  some  misgivings 
as  to  the  remnant  of  Mr.  Corbin's  "  Italian  experiment." 

The  number  of  Italian  squads  in  1898  was  38,  with 


1 82      The  American  Race  Problem 

200  working  hands,  cultivating  1,200  acres  of  cotton. 
Of  Negro  squads  there  were  203,  with  600  working 
hands,  cultivating  2,600  acres  of  cotton.  At  the  end  of 
1905,  after  eight  years,  there  are  on  the  property  107 
Italian  squads,  with  500  working  hands,  and  38  Negro 
families,  with  175  working  hands  —  an  increase  of  69 
squads  and  300  hands  for  the  Italians,  a  decrease  of 
165  squads  and  425  hands  for  the  Negro.  The  total 
cotton  acreage  has  increased  to  3,900,  of  which  the 
Italians  are  cultivating  3,000  acres  and  the  Negroes 
900.  This  bare  statement  of  numerical  loss  and  gain 
is  of  itself  pregnant  with  meaning.  It  becomes  doubly 
significant  when  we  analyse  the  operations  of  the  period 
under  investigation.  Beyond  the  number  of  families, 
hands,  and  acreage,  the  details  for  1898  are  not  avail 
able.  As  the  year's  business  for  1905  is  not  yet  closed, 
I  shall  eliminate  it  also.  This  gives  us  a  six-year  period 
for  a  comparative  exhibit  of  the  two  classes  of  labour, 
working  literally  side  by  side,  their  land  indiscrimin 
ately  allotted,  each  on  the  same  tenure,  each  under  the 
same  conditions  of  soil,  climate,  and  management.  I 
shall  confine  this  exhibit  to  the  salient  features  of  the 
operations.  These  are  the  number  of  families  and  hands, 
cotton  acreage  and  production,  and  value  per  hand.  I 
shall  consider  only  the  cash  commodities  of  cotton  and 
seed,  and  shall  reduce  the  figures  to  annual  averages.* 

*  For  the  privilege  of  securing  this  and  other  data  concerning  the  operations 
of  this  property,  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Messrs.  O.  B.  Crittenden  &  Co.,  of 
Greenville,  Miss.  My  thanks  are  also  due  Mr.  J.  B.  Ray,  bookkeeper,  and  Mr. 
Shelby  Wright,  manager,  Sunny  Side,  Ark.,  and  to  my  partner,  Mr.  Julian  H. 
Fort,  Dunleith,  Miss.  Without  their  generous  cooperation  this  study  could 
not  have  been  made. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    183 

This  gives  us  the  following  results:  Average  number 
of  squads,  Italians  52,  Negroes  167;  average  number  of 
working  hands,  Italians  269,  Negroes  433;  average 
number  of  acres  per  working  hand,  Italians,  6.2,  Negroes 
5.1;  average  pounds  of  lint  per  hand,  Italians  2,584, 
Negroes  1,174;  average  pounds  of  lint  per  acre,  Italians 
403,  Negroes  233  ;  average  cash  product  value  per  hand 
(cotton  and  seed),  Italians  $277.36,  Negroes  $128.47; 
average  cash  product  value  per  acre,  Italians  $44.77, 
Negroes  $26.36.  Thus  the  Italian  is  seen  to  have  pro 
duced  more  lint  per  hand,  by  1,410  pounds,  or  120.1 
per  cent.,  and  to  have  exceeded  the  Negro's  yield  per 
acre  by  170  pounds,  or  72.9  per  cent.  The  difference 
in  money  value  in  favour  of  the  Italian  was  $148.89 
per  hand,  or  115.8  per  cent.,  and  $18.41  per  acre,  or 
69.8  per  cent. 

It  is  apparent  that  in  the  matter  of  the  showing  of 
production  per  hand  the  Italian  had  the  advantage  of 
the  Negro  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  his  average  exhibit 
is  for  a  smaller  number  of  hands.  But  he  worked  6.2 
acres  per  hand  as  against  5.1  acres  for  the  Negro,  and 
produced  170  pounds  more  lint  per  acre.  It  must  also 
be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Negro  was  cultivating  a  crop 
with  which  his  race  has  been  familiar  for  generations, 
while  the  Italian  had  never  seen  a  stalk  of  cotton  before 
coming  to  America  only  a  few  years  ago.  Until  shown, 
they  did  not  even  know  the  difference  between  the 
plant  they  were  to  save  and  the  weeds  they  were  to  cut 
out  in  the  process  of  cultivation.  But  notwithstanding 
the  difference  between  the  two  in  point  of  efficiency, 


184     The  American  Race  Problem 

a  difference  which  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  controversy 
where  the  two  are  practically  known,  the  vital  differ 
ence  is  to  be  found  in  the  story  which  each  has  to  tell 
from  year  to  year  and  season  to  season. 

To  state  it  bluntly  and  coldly,  it  is  for  the  Negro  a 
recital  of  conditions  as  old  as  his  freedom:  too  much 
time  spent  out  of  his  crop,  and  away  from  his  work; 
too  much  waiting  for  the  weather  to  improve;  too 
much  putting  off  to  a  more  convenient  season;  a  too 
constant  and  too  successful  besieging  of  those  in  author 
ity  for  money  accommodations  and  supplies;  too  little 
reckoning  against  the  future  day  of  settlement;  too 
much  "leaning  on  the  Lord,"  and  too  little  upon  him 
self,  in  things  not  spiritual;  too  much  living  for  to-day 
and  not  enough  for  to-morrow.  With  the  Italian  it 
seems  to  be  simply  a  grim  determination  to  have  more 
at  the  end  of  this  year  than  he  had  at  the  end  of  last, 
regardless  of  weather  or  price;  to  wrest  from  every 
square  foot  of  the  soil  he  rents  all  that  nature  can  be 
forced  to  yield;  to  get  a  visible,  tangible  return  for 
every  dime  and  hour  he  spends;  to  live  on  less  than 
he  makes,  whether  the  latter  be  much  or  little;  to 
hire  nothing  done  that  he  can  do  himself;  to  keep  the 
future  ever  in  mind,  and  to  lay  by  a  store  against  age 
and  a  rainy  day. 

Let  a  few  typical  accounts  speak  for  themselves.  A 
Negro  with  three  grown  working  hands  in  his  family 
cultivates  nineteen  acres  and  has  an  account  of  $750.58. 
He  makes  $506.80  worth  of  cotton  and  seed,  and  owes 
a  balance  of  $243.78.  He  made  only  230  pounds  of  lint 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    185 

per  acre,  or  1,460  pounds  per  hand,  but  even  this  would 
have  left  him  in  fair  shape  but  for  his  account  for  sup 
plies  and  extra  work  in  his  crop.  These  items  alone 
amounted  to  $11.98  per  acre,  or  $7 5. 96  per  hand.  On  the 
other  side  of  a  "turn  row"  we  have  an  Italian  with 
three  working  hands,  two  grown  and  one  a  child,  work 
ing  20  acres.  They  owe  a  balance  of  $139  for  trans 
portation  from  Italy,  and  their  total  account  for  the 
year  is  $394.54.  Of  this  they  owe  not  one  cent  for  help 
in  their  crop,  and  their  supply  bill  is  $3.17  per  acre,  or 
$21.14  per  hand.  They  make  $804.25  worth  of  cotton 
and  seed,  and  have  a  cash  balance  of  $409.71.  The 
essential  difference,  I  believe,  lies  in  their  accounts. 
They  will  not  hire  work  done  for  them  where  they  can 
possibly  avoid  it,  but  when  it  does  become  necessary, 
they  will  exert  every  effort  to  make  enough  themselves 
by  outside  work  at  convenient  times  to  offset  what  they 
hire. 

Take  the  account  of  a  Negro  who  paid  his  current 
debts  and  had  a  balance.  He  had  three  grown  hands, 
cultivated  twenty-five  acres,  and  made  $730.20  worth 
of  cotton  and  seed.  His  account  was  $671.26,  leaving 
him  a  balance  of  $58.94  above  his  account.  His  supply 
bill  amounted  to  $13.12  per  acre  and  $109.37  per  hand. 
His  yield  of  lint  was  253  pounds  per  acre  and  2,106 
pounds  per  hand. 

Near  by  an  Italian  with  four  grown  hands  and  two 
children  demonstrated  the  possibilities  of  "intensive 
farming"  on  alluvial  land  by  working  only  twenty 
acres  with  his  extra  large  force.  He  produced  685 


i86     The  American  Race  Problem 

pounds  of  lint  per  acre,  while  his  yield  per  hand  was 
only  2,283  pounds  —  but  little  more  than  that  of  the 
last  mentioned  Negro.  His  account  was  $543.35,  and 
his  crop  brought  $1,596,  leaving  a  balance  of  $1,142. 65. 
In  contrast  to  this  we  have  another  group  of  Italians, 
with  the  same  force  as  the  one  just  mentioned,  four 
grown  hands  and  two  children,  working  more  than 
twice  as  much  land.  They  had  forty-three  acres,  and 
made  437  pounds  of  lint  per  acre,  and  3,135  pounds  per 
hand.  This  squad  has  been  on  the  place  several  years, 
and  is  reputed  to  have  accumulated  more  than  $15,000 
in  cash.  It  goes  without  saying  that  they  owed  no 
supply  account.  Their  other  account,  rent,  ginning, 
etc.,  amounted  to  $426.66.  Their  crop  brought 
$2,172.10,  leaving  a  net  balance  of  $1,745.44. 

The  first  of  these  two  squads  illustrates  what  may 
develop  into  a  tendency  of  considerable  sociological 
importance.  This  is  the  withdrawing  of  their  women 
and  children  from  regular  field  labour  as  soon  as  the 
step  is  warranted  by  an  improved  economic  condition. 
Here  and  there  this  is  being  done,  though  in  no  case 
until  the  stage  in  which  their  labour  is  necessary  has 
been  passed.  It  is  frequently  true  that  although  women 
and  children  are  included  in  the  statement  of  working 
hands,  they  merely  assist  at  intervals,  according  to  the 
necessities  of  the  crop.  Any  forecast  here  would  be 
gratuitous,  but  it  is  not  unlikely  that  after  a  single 
decade  any  large  group  of  Italian  agriculturists  would 
make  a  much  better  showing  in  this  regard  than  either 
the  Negro  farmer  or  the  Southern  white  mill  operative. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    187 

No  large  class  of  our  population  can  make  substantial 
social  progress  as  long  as  its  women  and  children  are 
compelled  to  play  the  role  of  breadwinners  in  the  field 
of  manual  labour.  I  have  seen  Italian  families  dis 
embark  in  my  town  from  New  Orleans  fruit  luggers, 
and  within  ten  to  fifteen  years  pass  through  all  the 
gradations  of  peddlers,  oyster  dealers,  and  restaurant 
keepers,  and  finally  emerge  as  prosperous  merchants 
and  property  holders.  In  every  instance  the  women 
did  their  share  of  the  drudgery  as  long  as  it  was  neces 
sary,  but  eventually  became  only  the  mistresses  of  their 
homes.  The  point  of  the  matter  is  that  there  is  not  one 
Italian  fruit  vender  in  the  town  who  is  not  to-day 
striving  to  emulate  the  successful  examples  of  his  fel 
lows.  I  do  not  believe  the  Italian  agriculturist  is 
different  in  this  respect  from  his  urban  brother. 

To  again  glance  at  their  accounts.  Here  is  an  Italian 
who  worked  nineteen  and  one-half  acres  with  two  grown 
hands  and  two  children.  He  has  practically  the  same 
acreage  and  force  as  that  of  the  Negro  first  mentioned 
above.  The  Negro  had  three  grown  hands,  and  nine 
teen  acres.  The  difference  between  the  results  of  the 
year's  work  for  the  two  was  due  more,  probably,  to  the 
fact  that  the  Italian  contracted  no  supply  account 
than  to  their  respective  crops.  The  Italian  made  488 
pounds  of  lint  per  acre,  which  was  more  than  double 
the  Negro's  yield.  But  his  1,586  pounds  per  hand 
was  only  126  pounds  more  than  the  Negro's  1,460. 
But  the  Negro's  account  for  supplies  and  extra  work 
amounted  to  $75.96  per  working  hand,  while  the  Italian 


1 88      The  American  Race  Problem 

has  no  such  account  at  all.  The  Italian's  account,  all 
told,  rent,  etc.,  was  only  $216.81,  while  his  crop  brought 
$1,096.15.  He  thus  had  a  net  balance  of  $879.34. 
I  believe  the  difference  is  to  be  found  in  their  accounts 
as  well  as  in  the  character  of  their  work.  Of  course, 
with  a  greater  production  there  is  room  for  heavier 
accounts,  if  the  tenant  sees  fit  to  gratify  his  wishes. 
But  I  know  it  to  be  a  fact  that  even  with  his  present 
degree  of  efficiency,  the  Negro  could  very  greatly  im 
prove  his  condition  if  he  would  constantly  try  to  keep 
his  account  down  as  the  Italian  does,  instead  of  con 
tinually  seeking  to  gratify  his  wishes  and  whims  with  a 
blindly  fatalistic  disregard  of  the  future.  In  a  planta 
tion  experience  of  more  than  twelve  years,  during  which 
time  I  have  been  a  close  observer  of  the  economic  life 
of  the  plantation  Negro,  I  have  not  known  one  to  anti 
cipate  the  future  by  investing  the  earnings  of  one  year 
in  supplies  for  the  next.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  per 
sonally  known  scores  of  them  to  fritter  away  thousands 
of  dollars  paid  them  in  cash  balances,  in  ways  that  would 
be  absolutely  beyond  discovery.  I  have  seen  a  man  and 
his  wife  leave  a  plantation  office  in  the  morning  with 
$150  in  cash,  spend  the  day  in  town,  and  return  in  the 
evening  with  no  money,  and  practically  nothing  to 
show  for  it.  I  have  also  known  them,  time  and  again, 
to  leave  money  to  their  credit  on  the  plantation  books, 
and  absolutely  insist  on  buying  their  supplies  on  credit, 
and  at  time  prices.  We  have  such  accounts  on  our 
books  to-day,  notwithstanding  that  we  repeatedly 
attempt  to  show  them  the  folly  of  such  methods,  and 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    189 

try  to  induce  them  to  use  their  money  in  a  businesslike 
way.  The  idea  seems  to  be  that  the  money  from  a  crop 
already  gathered  is  theirs,  to  spend  as  fancy  suggests, 
while  the  crop  to  be  made  must  take  care  of  itself,  or  be 
taken  care  of  by  the  "white  folks."  This  sounds  ridicu 
lous,  and  is  ridiculous,  but  it  is  also  none  the  less  true. 
The  money  thus  thrown  away  by  the  Negro  the  Italians 
put  to  cold-blooded  business  uses.  They  will  take 
advantage  of  a  discount  offered  on  a  $150  purchase  of 
supplies,  and  I  have  known  instances  of  their  offering 
to  pay  land  rent  a  year  in  advance  for  a  similar  con 
sideration. 

It  is  a  knowledge  of  such  facts  as  these,  and  a  famili 
arity  with  the  "average  traits"  of  the  Negro  agricul 
turist,  which  cause  me  to  believe  that  from  the  Negro's 
standpoint  the  problem  is  much  graver  and  more  diffi 
cult  than  one  of  mere  efficiency  alone.  Professor  H. 
T.  Kealing,  himself  of  the  race,  thus  speaks  of  the 
Negro's  "improvidence  and  extravagance":  "He  will 
drop  the  most  important  job  to  go  on  an  excursion  or 
parade  with  his  lodge.  He  spends  large  sums  on  ex 
pensive  clothing  and  luxuries,  while  going  without 
things  necessary  to  a  real  home.  He  will  cheerfully 
eat  fat  bacon  and  'pone'  cornbread  all  the  week  in 
order  to  indulge  in  unlimited  soda-water,  melon,  and 
fish  at  the  end.  In  the  cities  he  is  oftener  seen  dealing 
with  the  pawnbroker  than  the  banker.  His  house, 
when  furnished  at  all,  is  better  furnished  than  that  of 
a  white  man  of  equal  earning  power,  but  it  is  on  the 
instalment  plan.  He  is  loath  to  buy  a  house,  because 


1 90     The  American  Race  Problem 

he  has  no  taste  for  responsibility  nor  faith  in  himself 
to  manage  large  concerns;  but  organs,  pianos,  clocks, 
sewing-machines,  and  parlour  suits,  on  time,  have  no 
terrors  for  him."* 

I  can  bear  witness  to  the  accuracy  of  this  picture. 
We  have  to  post  plantations  against  various  kinds  of 
itinerant  "agents,"  or  be  harassed  at  the  end  of  each 
year  by  the  efforts  of  foreign  concerns,  generally  in  the 
Middle  Western  states,  to  force  money  out  of  our  Negroes 
for  every  imaginable  article  peculiar  to  such  commerce. 
These  things  range  from  gaudily  illustrated  "family 
Bibles"  to  "sure  cures"  for  rheumatism  and  nostrums 
guaranteed  to  straighten  the  hair  and  bleach  the  skin. 
Western  mail  order  houses  also  do  a  heavy  c.  o.  d. 
business  in  this  territory,  largely  in  pistols,  sewing- 
machines,  and  medicines.  Meanwhile,  throughout  the 
year,  the  Italian  peddler  drives  through  the  country  in 
a,  covered  wagon  and  exchanges  with  the  Negro  the 
"soda  pop,"  sausage,  fish,  et  cetera,  mentioned  by  Mr. 
Kealing,  for  the  few  stray  dimes  that  chance  to  remain 
on  hand  from  the  last  trip  to  town. 

We  need  not  multiply  accounts  for  the  mere  pur 
pose  of  comparison.  The  general  results  possess  a 
meaning  sufficiently  significant.  Of  the  no  Italian 
squads  who  started  to  work  at  the  beginning  of  the 
current  year,  44  were  new  arrivals.  Yet  of  the  total 
number,  65  squads,  or  59  per  cent.,  had  no  supply 
accounts  during  1905.  That  is  to  say,  practically  all 
who  were  on  the  place  last  year  were  in  a  condition 

*  "The  Negro  Problem,"  p.  176. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    191 

of  independence  this  year.  Of  the  61  Negro  families 
who  began  to  make  crops  this  year  only  2,  or  3.2  per 
cent,  of  the  whole,  are  independent.  This  situation 
may  be  understood  when  we  know  that  back  of  it  lies 
the  fact  that  to  the  66  Italian  families  in  1904  cash 
balances  above  accounts  were  paid  in  the  sum  of 
$38,764.58,  an  average  of  $587.35  per  squad.  Of  the  no 
Negro  families  in  1 904  two  drew  total  balances  of  $480.50, 
while  the  firm  had  on  its  books  at  the  end  of  the  year 
the  sum  of  $6,456.20  in  Negro  balances  due.  (I  have 
a  friend,  operating  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  who  last 
year  charged  off  to  profit  and  loss  $4,300  due  him  by 
the  Negroes  on  his  place.) 

Take  another  illustration  of  what  these  operations 
have  meant  for  the  two  races:  There  were  107  Italian 
squads  at  the  end  of  1905.  Of  these  104  owned  123  head 
of  work  stock  and  other  live  stock,  such  as  cattle, 
sheep  and  hogs,  to  the  total  value  of  $23,400.  Only 
three  squads  owned  no  stock.  Of  the  38  Negro  squads 
21  owned  work  and  live  stock  to  the  total  value  of  $3,360, 
and  1 7  owned  no  stock.  This  indicates  a  failure  to  im 
prove  their  condition  upon  the  part  of  the  Negroes 
as  a  whole,  and  a  grossly  unequal  distribution  of  prop 
erty  as  well.  Of  107  Italians  but  2.8  per  cent,  have 
no  share  in  the  general  wealth;  of  38  Negroes  44.7  per 
cent,  have  no  such  share. 

Further  testimony  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Italian 
in  his  new  environment  is  hardly  necessary.  I  may 
only  add  that  the  best  evidence  of  their  satisfied  estate 
is  the  fact  that  each  year  some  of  them  furnish  trans- 


The  American  Race  Problem 


portation  for  friends  or  relatives  at  home.  But  where 
in  lies  the  advantage  to  the  landowner  over  the  Negro 
tenant  system?  This  question  is  pertinent,  for  in  its 
ultimate  answer  will  be  found  the  key  to  the  attitude 
of  the  employer  of  agricultural  labour  toward  the  ques 
tion  of  foreign  immigration  to  the  Southern  states. 
Without  touching  the  broader  aspect  of  the  question 
—  the  advantage  to  the  general  welfare  of  efficient  over 
inefficient  labour  —  I  would  answer  specifically  by 
suggesting  three  points  of  superiority  for  the  Italian: 
First,  I  would  put  a  permanent  and  assured  tenantry; 
secondly,  thorough  and  careful  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
without  the  necessity  for  an  almost  paternalistic  super 
vision  of  the  labour;  thirdly,  following  as  a  natural 
sequence  to  the  other  two,  greater  safety  and  larger 
freedom  from  losses  in  furnishing,  and,  ultimately,  the 
employing  of  a  smaller  operating  capital. 
f-  As  a.  cotton  planter,  the  greatest  fault  I  find  with 
/  Negro  labour  is  not  its  improvidence  or  shiftlessness. 
Certainly  these  are  a  source  of  annoyance  to  the  planter, 
but  they  much  more  vitally  concern  the  Negro  himself. 
They  constitute  the  handicap  which,  unless  removed, 
will  cause  him  to  lose  the  race  to  the  foreigner.  But 
the  planter's  greatest  trouble  arises  out  of  the  Negro's 
unreliability  —  the  fact  that  he  cannot  be  depended  on 
to  be  governed  by  considerations  of  self-interest;  that 
he  changes  his  habitation  in  response  to  the  most  trif 
ling  and  whimsical  suggestions,  and  frequently  for  no 
reason  at  all;  that  out  of  any  group  of  plantation 
families  we  never  know  toward  the  close  of  one  year 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    193 

upon  how  many  we  may  depend  for  the  next  —  regard 
less  of  what  they  tell  us,  nor  how  many  will  carry 
through  a  crop  after  they  have  contracted  to  do  so. 

Here  again  we  may  draw  on  Sunny  Side  for  an  in 
structive  comparison.  One  hundred  and  ten  Italian 
squads  began  crops  in  1905,  and  107  carried  them 
through.  One  left  because  of  sickness,  one  ran  off, 
and  one  was  made  to  leave.  Sixty-one  Negro  squads 
began  the  year,  and  thirty-eight  went  through;  seven 
teen  "turned  back"  their  crops,  and  six  ran  off.  Of 
the  Italians  97.2  per  cent,  stayed  through  the  year; 
of  the  Negroes,  62.2  per  cent.  Whereas  with  the  Negro 
we  have  the  constant  difficulty  I  have  mentioned,  of 
not  knowing  with  certainty  at  the  end  of  one  year  whose 
places  will  have  to  be  filled  for  another,  with  the  Italians 
the  reverse  is  true.  They  come  up  of  their  own  voli 
tion  during  August  and  September  and  arrange  their 
affairs  for  the  following  season.  And  so  quickly  do 
they  become  wedded  to  a  particular  allotment  of  land 
they  are  rarely  willing  to  change.  When  they  do, 
it  must  be  clearly  to  their  interest  to  make  the  move. 
A  few  have  returned  to  Italy,  but  a  year  before  their 
departure  they  arranged  to  have  their  land  taken  by 
some  relative,  and  thus  retained  it  in  the  family.  The 
opportunity  which  the  Negro  yearly  casts  to  the  winds 
of  improvidence  the  Italian  embraces  as  something 
too  valuable  to  fritter  away.  There  is  nothing  new 
about  any  of  these  traits. 

This  Italian  group  has  been  built  up  largely  through 
additions  brought  over  by  those  on  the  ground,  from 


194 


The  American  Race  Problem 


year  to  year.  Possibly  they  may  be  above  the  average 
of  their  class,  but  I  have  no  reason  to  think  so.  Cer 
tainly  these  Negroes  are  not  below  the  average  of  theirs. 
The  statement  of  the  characteristics  exhibited  by  these 
Italians  might  be  received  with  incredulity  by  a  man 
accustomed  all  his  life  to  Negro  labour.  But  this  would 
be  due  to  ignorance  on  his  part.  They  are  as  old  as 
the  metayers  of  Lombardy,  Piedmont,  and  Tuscany 
themselves  —  those  frugal  and  industrious  peasants  who 
made  the  valley  of  the  Arno  one  of  the  garden  spots  of 
the  world.  I  wish  I  could  give  you  a  description  of 
these  people  at  home  —  as  quoted  by  John  Stuart  Mill 
from  Arthur  Young,  Chateau vieux,  and  Sismondi.  I 
commend  the  chapter  on  me'tayers  in  Mill's  first  volume 
to  anyone  interested  in  the  subject  we  are  discussing. 
But  perhaps  a  more  modern  picture  may  serve  our 
purpose,  especially  as  it  is  by  a  practical  cotton  planter, 
who  recently  went  from  Mississippi  to  Italy  to  study  at 
first  hand  its  peasant  population.  Mr.  Charles  Scott, 
of  Rosedale,  Mississippi,  says:  "I  visited  some  of  these 
people  in  their  homes.  They  received  me  cordially, 
and  I  was  most  favourably  impressed  with  them. 
They  are  a  stalwart,  industrious,  and  hardy  race.  I 
found  them  frugal  and  temperate  in  most  things,  and 
while  somewhat  peppery  and  excitable,  as  might  be 
expected  from  their  climate  and  antecedents,  they 
are  not  vindictive,  but  seem  to  '  carry  anger  as  the  flint 
does  fire.'  .  .  .  Their  diet  was  simple  and  inexpen 
sive.  A  Southern  plantation  Negro  would  scorn  to 
accept  a  similar  ration.  .  .  .  These  men  are 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    195 

already  good  farmers,  and  on  the  whole  have  the  right 
material  in  them  for  the  making  of  good  American 
citizens."* 

Perhaps  the  most  broadly  characteristic  feature  of 
Negro  argiculture  is  to  be  found  in  the  almost  uni 
versally  neglected  garden.  Nowhere  else  is  the  con 
trast  presented  more  strongly  by  the  Italian.  Right 
here  is  told  in  humble  eloquence  the  story  of  thrift, 
economy,  care,  the  thought  of  small  things,  the  whole 
gamut  of  homely  traits  which  go  to  distinguish  the 
ultimately  successful  tiller  of  the  soil  from  the  man  who 
ultimately  fails.  Mr.  Kelsey  says:  "In  all  parts  [of 
the  South]  it  is  the  custom  for  the  Negroes  to  save  a 
little  garden  patch  about  the  house,  which,  if  properly 
tended,  would  supply  the  family  with  vegetables 
throughout  the  year.  This  is  seldom  the  case."  He 
quotes  as  follows  from  a  Tuskegee  Catalogue:  "If 
they  have  any  garden  at  all,  it  is  apt  to  be  choked  witm? 
weeds  and  other  noxious  growths.  With  every  ad 
vantage  of  soil  and  climate,  and  with  a  steady  market 
if  they  live  near  any  city  or  large  town,  few  of  the 
coloured  farmers  get  any  benefit  from  this,  one  of  the 
most  profitable  of  all  industries.''! 

To  this  Tuskegee  description  I  would  add  this  testi 
mony,  as  I  have  given  it  elsewhere:  "Given  equal 
soil  and  equal  climatic  conditions  for  growing  cotton, 
and  the  odds  are  with  the  man  who  cultivates  his  crop 
best  and  most  carefully.  The  Italian  works  more 


*  Manufacturers'  Record,   Nov.  9,  1905,  p.  433. 
t  "The  Negro  Farmer,"  p.  31. 


196     The  American  Race  Problem 

constantly  than  the  Negro,  and,  after  one  or  two  years' 
experience,  cultivates  more  intelligently.  In  compar 
ing  the  two  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  go  beyond  the 
appearance  of  their  respective  premises  and  fields  to 
gain  an  insight  into  the  difference  between  them.  The 
general  condition  of  the  plantation  premises  occupied  by 
Negroes,  under  whatever  system  of  cultivation,  has 
been  an  eyesore  in  the  cotton  states  for  more  than  a 
generation.  The  spectacle  of  broken-down  fences, 
patchwork  outhouses,  half-cultivated  fields,  and  garden 
spots  rank  with  weeds,  is  too  familiar  to  the  traveller 
through  the  Southern  states  to  need  description  here. 
The  destructive  propensity  of  the  Negro  constitutes 
to-day  a  serious  problem  on  many  a  well  ordered  plan 
tation.  On  the  property  in  which  the  writer  is  interested 
the  effort  to  maintain  the  premises  of  the  Negro  tenants 
in  keeping  with  the  general  appearance  of  the  planta 
tion  seems  yearly  to  become  a  more  hopeless  under 
taking.  It  seems  difficult  to  escape  the  conclusion  that 
back  of  all  this  lie  the  characteristics  that  apparently 
have  always  been  a  curse  to  the  race  —  whether  in 
Africa,  the  Southern  states,  or  the  West  Indies  —  shift- 
lessness  and  improvidence. 

"On  the  other  hand,  the  appearance  of  the  Italian 
cotton  grower's  immediate  surroundings,  working  on 
the  same  tenant  system  as  the  Negro,  is  alone  sufficient 
to  tell  the  story  of  the  difference  between  the  ultimate 
end  and  purpose  of  the  labour  of  the  two.  The  contrast 
is  not  alone  in  the  things  that  appeal  to  the  eye;  it  is 
much  more  emphasised  in  the  respective  uses  made  of 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro 


197 


the  same  material  and  opportunities.  From  the 
garden  spot  which  the  Negro  allows  to  grow  up  in  weeds, 
the  Italian  will  supply  his  family  from  early  spring  until 
late  fall,  and  also  market  enough  largely  to  carry  him 
through  the  winter.  1  have  seen  the  ceilings  of  their 
houses  literally  covered  with  strings  of  dried  butter 
beans,  pepper,  okra,  and  other  garden  products,  while 
the  walls  would  be  hung  with  corn,  sun-cured  in  the 
roasting  ear  stage.  In  the  rear  of  a  well  kept  house 
would  be  erected  a  woodshed,  and  in  it  could  be  seen 
enough  fire- wood,  sawed  and  ready  for  use,  to  run  the 
family  through  the  winter  months.  These  people  did 
not  wait  till  half-frozen  feet  compelled  attention  to  the 
question  of  fuel,  and  then  tear  down  the  fence  to  supply 
their  wants.  Nor  would  they  be  found  drifting  about 
near  the  close  of  each  season,  in  an  aimless  effort  to 
satisfy  an  unreasoned  desire  to  'move. '  "* 

Elsewhere  I  have  given  the  results  of  "A  Plantation 
Experiment,"  as  made  on  the  property  in  which  I  am 
interested,  f  A  study  of  the  figures  given  there  will 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Negro  can  produce  as 
much  as  the  Italian.  And  so  he  can;  but  production 
is  only  half  the  story.  And  another  consideration 
must  be  borne  in  mind:  namely,  that  the  Dunleith 
experiment  was  conducted  on  new  land,  far  above  the 
average  in  fertility,  and,  above  all,  that  it  was  a  highly 
paternalistic  enterprise.  I  know  of  no  other  plantation 
in  the  South  where  the  Negro  has  been,  or  is  likely  to 

*  "The  Italian  Cotton  Grower,  The  Negro's  Problem,"    Alfred  Holt  Stone. 
South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  Jan.  1905,  pp.  44,  45. 
t  Paper  IV,  supra. 


198      The  American  Race  Problem 

be,  surrounded  by  economic  conditions  equally  as  favour 
able.  But  the  milk  in  that  cocoanut  is  that  the  experi 
ment  failed,  absolutely  and  lamentably  failed,  to  ac 
complish  its  purpose.  This  was  to  build  up  a  respect 
able,  industrious,  and  reliable  body  of  tenants,  while 
this  very  thing  has  been  accomplished  on  the  Sunny 
Side  property,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  the  substitu 
tion  of  a  different  class  of  labour.  Further  than  this, 
from  the  Negro's  standpoint  also  it  failed.  For,  de 
spite  an  artificially  stimulated  efficiency,  there  was 
lacking  the  final  essential  of  thrift.  He  made,  but  he 
did  not  save. 

I  hold  no  brief  for  the  Italian.  As  far  as  he  is  con 
cerned  my  interest  is  purely  one  of  abstract  economics. 
For  the  masses  of  the  Negro  race  I  have  only  the  kind 
liest  feeling.  There  is  not  a  white  tenant  on  Dunleith 
Plantation,  nor  will  there  be  until  we  are  driven  to 
that  recourse  by  the  Negro  himself.  I  do  not  believe 
it  will  ever  come  my  way  to  do  these  people  a  greater 
service  than  right  here,  if  only  my  voice  could  reach 
them,  by  pointing  out,  as  I  see  it,  the  only  key  to  the 
safety  of  their  future  economic  position.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  unrest  in  my  section  over  the  labour  ques 
tion.  In  1905  I  travelled  more  than  twenty-five 
hundred  miles  through  ten  Southern  states,  and  also 
corresponded  with  men  in  every  part  of  the  South.  I 
do  not  speak  idly  when  I  say  that  Southern  people  in 
constantly  increasing  numbers  are  more  and  more 
coming  to  the  conclusion  that  they  must  at  last  put 
forth  a  determined  effort  to  render  themselves  inde- 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    199 

pendent  of  the   Negro  — •  to  begin  in  some  degree  the 
final  supplanting  of  the  latter  by  the  white  man. 

My  study  of  conditions  is  not  so  superficial  as  to  be 
tray  me  into  ignoring  the  fact  that  Southern  economic 
development  during  the  past  two  decades  has  greatly 
outstripped  the  growth  of  Southern  population.  But 
this  does  not  tell  the  whole  story.  The  resulting  "labour 
scarcity"  is  more  apparent  than  real.  The  streets  and 
purlieus  of  our  towns  are  filled  with  idlers  by  day  and 
prowlers  by  night.  If  the  vagrancy  statutes  of  every 
Southern  state  were  suddenly  enforced  the  jails  would 
be  filled  to  overflowing.  We  offer  the  wages  demanded, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  find  those  who  are  willing  to  accept 
steady  employment.  In  a  town  full  of  Negroes  we  have 
had  to  largely  substitute  coal  as  a  cooking  fuel  because 
we  could  not  get  stove  wood  cut.  On  a  plantation  with 
nearly  three  hundred  Negroes  surrounding  them  my 
partner's  wife  has  frequently,  for  long  periods,  had  to 
patronise  a  city  laundry.  I  sometimes  wonder  if  the 
story  of  Jamaica  and  the  West  Indies  is  to  be  repeated 
in  the  South.  It  is  so  easy  to  exist,  by  various  and 
devious  means,  that  our  Negroes  in  alarming  numbers 
are  ceasing  to  care  to  do  much  more  than  live  from 
hand  to  mouth.  Thousands  of  them  are  doing  it  to 
day,  and  too  many  other  thousands  are  tending  that 
way.  Already,  here  and  there,  scattered  throughout 
the  South,  even  in  many  smaller  towns  white  domestic 
servants  may  be  seen.  There  are  white  barbers  and 
bootblacks,  and  white  men  in  every  other  trade  and 
calling.  States  and  railroads  and  private  organisations 


200     The  American  Race  Problem 

are  discussing  the  question  of  foreign  immigration  with 
increasing  earnestness.  I  know  that  a  few  leading 
Negroes  have  ridiculed  this  incipient  movement,  even 
as  Frederick  Douglass  ridiculed  it  as  a  possibility  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  most  prominent  Negro 
editor  in  the  United  States  has  said  that  the  South  is 
merely  putting  up  a  "bluff."  But  I  believe  the  South 
ern  people  are  in  earnest. 

As  I  have  said,  the  Negro  possibly  has  it  in  his  power 
to  arrest  this  movement,  at  least  for  many  years.  He 
can  do  it,  in  a  measure  at  least,  by  making  of  himself 
a  reliable,  dependable  factor  in  the  economic  life  of 
the  South,  but  not  by  any  other  means  within  my  view. 
I  say  he  can  do  this.  But  will  he?  It  would  mean  a 
revolution  in  the  present  social  and  industrial  life  and 
habits  of  the  masses.  To  me  the  outlook  for  such  a 
course  does  not  seem  encouraging.  And  how  long  will 
he  require  for  the  process?  For  meanwhile  the  world 
will  not  stand  still. 

But  in  a  broader  view  even  this  would  be  but  tempo 
rary  ;  a  mere  postponing  of  the  inevitable.  This  life  of 
ours  is,  and  is  likely  always  to  remain,  a  ceaseless 
struggle  for  supremacy  among  nations,  and  races,  and 
individuals.  Heretofore  he  has  been  largely  shielded 
by  conditions,  partly  economic  and  partly  geographic, 
but  it  would  be  unwise  for  the  Negro  to  cherish  the  de 
lusion  that  he  alone  of  all  mankind  is  to  remain  forever 
exempt  from  such  a  contest.  Nothing  is  more  surely 
written  in  the  book  of  fate  than  that  he  will  have  to 
meet  it,  soon  or  late. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    201 

I  have  quoted  Mr.  Washington's  opinion  that  he  did 
not  believe  the  masses  of  his  people  fitted  to  face  the 
competition  of  Northern  cities.  There  the  result  of 
such  competition  has  turned  mainly  upon  the  considera 
tions  of  efficiency,  reliability,  and  thrift,  with  some 
account  to  be  taken  of  Northern  economic  race  pre 
judice,  if  I  may  use  the  expression.  The  white  people 
of  this  country  are  fundamentally  alike  as  regards 
their  attitude  toward  the  Negro.  However  much  this 
may  be  denied  on  each  side  the  line,  as  to  some  partic 
ular  aspect  of  the  question,  its  essential  truth  will  grad 
ually  be  made  manifest,  as  economic  and  political  con 
ditions  shape  themselves  toward  greater  uniformity  be 
tween  the  two  sections.  Even  though  we  may  safely 
eliminate  the  factor  of  industrial  prejudice  from  a 
present  consideration  of  competition  in  the  South,  we 
need  not  deceive  ourselves,  v  Eventually  we  shall  have 
to  face  it;  as  soon  probably  as  the  South  awakens  to  a 
realisation  of  the  fact  that  in  her  industrial  rivalry 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  she  is  handicapped  by  labour 
of  a  normally  low  degree  of  efficiency  —  and  begins 
really  to  stimulate  foreign  and  domestic  immigration. 

But  aside  from  this,  what  of  the  other  factors? 
Have  we  any  grounds  for  assuming  that  they  would  be 
any  less  potent  South  than  North,  in  turning  the  scales 
against  the  Negro?  I  have  never  indulged  in  dogmatic 
assertions  about  the  present  of  the  Negro,  and  I  shall 
certainly  not  begin  with  a  dogmatic  prediction  as  to 
his  future.  I  have  merely  tried  to  indicate  some  of 
the  factors  and  results  of  such  a  contest,  as  they  have 


202      The  American  Race  Problem 

already  been  wrought  out  before  us  in  a  sort  of  mimic 
warfare.  Is  any  man,  qualified  to  speak  by  familiar 
ity  with  the  Negro  masses,  prepared  to  promise  that 
in  a  larger  field,  upon  a  broader  stage,  the  end  of  the 
struggle  would  not  be  the  same  ? 

It  will  be  a  slow  process  of  attrition,  when  it  really 
comes,  this  working  out  of  the  results  of  competition. 
It  will  not  be  attended  by  any  sensational  features. 
There  will  be  nothing  sudden  about  it,  nor  will  it  mean 
the  extinction  of  the  Negro  as  an  economic  factor. 
It  seems  to  me  that  its  effect  will  be  merely  to  submerge 
the  incompetent  mass,  and  elevate,  in  that  very  process, 
such  as  can  weather  the  storm.  In  its  last  analysis,  it 
will  be  his  own,  not  the  white  man's  hand,  that  closes 
in  the  Negro's  face  the  door  of  economic  hope,  for  only 
he  can  keep  it  open.  If  the  story  of  the  fate  of  the  old 
time  business  Negro  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  in 
the  years  to  come  shall  be  related  of  the  Negro  agricul 
turist  of  the  South,  it  will  be  for  the  latter  but  a  final 
reaping  of  the  fruits  of  Reuben's  ancient  curse  :  "Un 
stable  as  water,  thou  shalt  not  excel." 

My  conception  of  the  treatment  of  the  question  before 
us  does  not  involve  an  outlook  upon  the  thirteenth 
census.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  not  projecting  it  into 
a  future  too  remote  for  practical  consideration.  I  have 
not  founded  conclusions  upon  isolated  phenomena,  nor 
am  I  particularly  concerned  with  this  or  that  group  of 
conditions,  save  as  they  disclose  the  results  of  the  work 
ing  out  of  what  reasonably  seem  to  be  persistent  factors. 
The  particular  demonstration  of  relative  efficiency  be- 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro   203 

tween  Italians  and  Negroes  which  has  been  used  here 
would  lose  nothing  of  its  significance  if  through  some 
adventitious  circumstance  the  Sunny  Side  colony  were 
wiped  out  of  existence  to-morrow;  or  if  for  reasons  suf 
ficient  unto  themselves  the  operators  of  that  property 
were  immediately  to  displace  every  Italian  on  it,  and 
return  to  Negro  labour.  I  have  merely  endeavoured  to 
deal  with  forces  already  widely  and  actively  at  work, 
and  with  human  traits  the  operation  of  which  has 
already  been  unfolded  to  our  view.  If  these  constitute 
two  groups  of  fixed  elements  in  the  problem  then  the 
future  is  no  more  uncertain  than  are  the  operations  of 
the  natural  laws  by  which  we  forecast  the  outcome  of 
any  other  struggle  between  weakness  and  strength. 
True,  "the  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  nor  the 
battle  to  the  strong  ;"  but  in  this  case  the  initial  dis 
tance  between  the  contestants  would  seem  too  great  to 
be  overcome  by  time  or  chance. 

Very  likely  it  will  be  urged  that  I  have  given  the 
point  of  view  of  the  employer  of  Negro  labour,  and  have 
too  greatly  emphasised  the  force  of  the  weaker  side  of 
the  Negro  masses.  The  other  side  has  been  presented 
many  times,  in  the  attempt  to  make  out  a  case  against 
the  white  man  which  would  lift  the  onus  for  existing 
conditions  from  the  shoulders  of  the  Negro. 

Mr.  T.  Thomas  Fortune  quotes  from  Dr.  DuBois  the 
statement  that  "in  well-nigh  the  whole  rural  South  the 
black  farmers  are  peons,  bound  by  law  and  custom  to  an 
economic  slavery,  from  which  the  only  escape  is  death 
or  the  penitentiary."  He  adds  his  own  to  this  effect: 


204 


The  American  Race  Problem 


"It  is  a  dark  and  gloomy  picture,  the  substitution  of 
industrial  for  chattel  slavery,  with  none  of  the  legal  and 
selfish  restraints  upon  the  employer  which  surrounded 
and  actuated  the  master.  And  this  is  true  of  the  entire 
mass  of  the  Afro-American  labourers  of  the  Southern 
states.  "*  I  submit  the  picture  just  as  it  is  drawn.  This 
is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  question  of  its  fidelity  to 
truth.  My  only  comment  is  that  I  am  not  able  to 
fathom  the  buoyancy  of  spirit  which  can  believe  in  the 
accuracy  of  this  presentation  of  the  Negro's  present  eco 
nomic  condition  and  at  the  same  time  profess  a  hope  for 
his  future. 

It  is  idle  here  to  confuse  the  practical  question  of 
actual  conditions  with  the  ethical  question  of  cause. 
For  our  purpose  we  need  not  stop  to  multiply  words 
in  an  effort  to  determine  where  rests  the  burden  of 
responsibility.  Between  the  white  man  and  the  black 
it  is  likely  always  to  remain  a  disputed  question.  This 
is  human  nature.  But  a  man  who  has  ceased  to  breathe 
is  equally  dead,  whether  he  came  to  his  death  by 
assassination  or  suicide.  If  the  end  is  to  be  the  same, 
the  Negro  masses  will  not  be  particularly  interested  in 
the  academic  question  of  causes  and  means.  If  the 
white  man  is  responsible  for  the  Negro's  condition; 
if  the  latter  cannot  remove  the  obstacles  from  his  own 
path,  then  his  economic  future  no  longer  remains  within 
the  field  of  speculation,  and  the  efforts  toward  his  in 
dustrial  training  become  a  mockery  to  him  and  a  fraud 
upon  those  who  support  them. 

*  "The  Negro  Problem,"  pp.  228,  229. 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    205 

But  I  take  the  view  which  at  least  holds  something  of 
hope  for  the  Negro,  in  that  it  does  not  entirely  remove 
his  present  or  future  from  the  range  of  his  own  indi 
vidual  efforts.  As  I  have  expressed  it  elsewhere: 
"When  the  friend  of  the  Negro  masses  would  know 
the  whole  truth  behind  the  forces  which  to-day  most 
militate  against  the  material  progress  of  the  race,  he 
must  go  deep  below  the  surface  of  troubles  which  the 
white  man  can  remove  or  rectify."* 

In  the  larger  sense  there  is  another  aspect  of  the 
Negro's  life  that  must  be  considered  in  attempting  to 
estimate  his  future.  The  two  gravest  obstacles  to  be 
overcome  by  the  race  are  improvidence  and  immoral 
ity,  each  in  its  broadest  significance.  Of  the  first  I 
have  already  said  quite  enough.  Of  the  second  I 
shall  let  Mr.  Washington  and  Dr.  DuBois  speak  for 
me.  The  former  says:  "No  one  who  wants  to  be 
honest  and  at  the  same  time  benefit  the  race  will  deny 
that  here  is  where  the  strengthening  is  to  be  done."f 
Dr.  DuBois  says:  "The  evil  is  still  deep  seated,  and  only 
a  general  raising  of  the  standard  of  living  will  finally 
cure  it."  In  this  connection  he  says  of  the  Negroes  of  a 
Georgia  county:  "Perhaps  10  per  cent,  compose  the 
well-to-do  and  the  best  of  the  labourers,  while  at  least 
9  per  cent  are  thoroughly  lewd  and  vicious.  The  rest, 
over  80  per  cent.,  are  poor  and  ignorant,  fairly  honest 
and  well  meaning,  plodding,  and  to  a  degree  shiftless, 
with  some  but  not  great  sexual  looseness,  "f  I  might 

*  P.  147 

+  "The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  169. 
J  "Souls  of  Black  Folk,  p.  143. 


2o6     The  American  Race  Problem 

alter  some  of  these  proportions,  but,  applied  to  the 
country  as  a  whole,  they  tell  the  story  well  enough 
as  they  stand. 

Here,  then,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  first  great  problem 
of  this  people,  the  problem  of  the  moral  elevation  of 
the  masses,  whose  status  will  at  last  determine  that  of 
the  race  as  a  whole.  No  man  is  further  than  I  from 
attempting  to  discount  the  value  to  a  race  or  nation  of 
its  exceptional  few  —  the  wealth  it  has  in  the  possession 
of  a  "talented  tenth."  But,  after  all  is  said  and  done, 
the  race,  it  seems  to  me,  must  stand  or  fall  by  the 
character  of  the  masses  of  its  people.  It  cannot  be 
saved  by  the  poetry  of  Dunbar,  by  the  novels  of  Chest- 
nutt,  by  the  music  of  Coleridge-Taylor,  by  the  surgical 
skill  of  Williams,  or  by  the  culture  and  intellect  of 
DuBois. 

In  his  work  on  "Social  Evolution"  Mr.  Benjamin 
Kidd  says  that  the  future  demands  that  we  realise  more 
clearly  just  what  constitutes  superiority  and  inferiority 
of  race.  He  says  that  science  gives  us  no  warrant  for 
claiming  superiority  for  a  certain  race  on  the  ground 
alone  of  colour,  descent,  or  even  high  intellectual  capacity. 
In  his  opinion  the  only  test  lies  in  the  measure  of  the 
possession  of  "  qualities  contributing  to  social  efficiency," 
and  high  among  these  he  places  "strength  and  energy 
of  character,  humanity,  probity  and  integrity,  and 
simple-minded  devotion  to  conceptions  of  duty  in  such 
circumstances  as  may  arise."  Mr.  Kidd  quotes  Mr. 
Lecky's  opinion  as  to  the  causes  of  the  prosperity  of 
nations.  The  latter's  words  are  more  impressive  than 


Economic  Future  of  the  Negro    207 

his  own,  for  they  apply  to  races  as  well  as  nations,  to 
black  as  well  as  white.  And  here  is  his  judgment 
on  real  "prosperity,"  which  the  friends  and  leaders  of 
the  American  Negro  may  not  unprofitably  take  to  heart: 
"Its  foundation  is  laid  in  pure  domestic  life,  in  com 
mercial  integrity,  in  a  high  standard  of  moral  worth 
and  of  public  spirit,  in  simple  habits,  in  courage,  up 
rightness,  and  a  certain  soundness  and  moderation  of 
judgment  which  springs  quite  as  much  from  character 
as  from  intellect."  And  his  conclusion  seems  to  me  to 
be  especially  applicable  to  our  discussion:  "If  you 
would  form  a  wise  judgment  of  the  future  of  a  nation, 
observe  carefully  whether  these  qualities  are  increas 
ing  or  decaying."* 

The  Negro  has  often  demanded  another  standard  than 
that  of  race  as  a  measure  of  his  capacity  and  value  as  a 
people.  Here  is  one,  severe  possibly,  but  fair  :  The  ex 
tent  to  which  the  race  as  a  whole  shall  prove  its  ability 
to  lay  the  foundation  of  "a  pure  domestic  life,"  and 
erect  thereon  a  superstructure  of  character  and  moral 
worth.  If  it  shall  establish  the  capacity  of  its  masses 
to  meet  this  test,  then  it  will  have  proved  its  title  to  a 
place  among  the  superior  races  of  the  earth,  and  this 
regardless  of  your  opinion  or  of  mine,  or  of  that  of  our 
fathers  before  us.  But,  though  it  become  ten  thousand 
times  richer  than  it  is  to-day,  and  overflow  the  land  in 
numbers,  and  fill  all  offices  of  profit,  if  it  fail  in  this 
supreme  criterion  it  will  still  be  an  inferior  people. 


*" Social  Evolution,"  Kidd,   N.   Y.,  1898,    pp.    348-350,  quoting  from  Mr. 
Becky's  "The  Political  Value  of  History." 


208     The  American  Race  Problem 

The  foundation  of  the  greatness  of  England  and  Ger 
many  and  America  does  not  consist  of  material  things 
alone,  nor  of  the  brilliant  achievements  of  their  "tal 
ented  tenths."  It  is  to  be  discovered  in  the  character 
of  the  home  life  of  their  great  average  classes  —  the 
masses  of  their  people.  It  is  the  latter  which  makes 
possible  and  assures  the  former,  and  there  is  no  shorter, 
easier  road  for  the  Negro  than  for  the  white  man.  Then 
the  current  measure  of  the  real  progress  of  the  race  is  to 
be  found  in  the  extent  to  which  the  characteristics  of 
one  of  the  other  of  its  two  extremes  —  its  highest  or  its 
lowest  class  —  are  most  impressed  upon  the  mass.  It  is 
not  alone  in  the  possession  of  houses  that  the  founda 
tions  of  prosperity,  as  Mr.  Lecky  defines  it,  are  laid; 
nor  in  their  possession  alone  that  racial  advance  is  indi 
cated.  It  is,  rather,  in  the  extent  to  which  these  houses 
possess  for  their  owners  the  true  significance  of  homes. 
This  test  is  sound,  but  difficult  of  certain  application. 
It  is  easier  to  enumerate  the  houses  of  a  people  than  it 
is  to  count  their  homes. 


PART  THREE 

CRUCIAL  POINTS  OF  POST  BELLUM 
RACIAL  CONTACT 

VI.    RACE  FRICTION 

VII.    MR.  ROOSEVELT,  THE  SOUTH,  AND  THE  NEGRO 
VIII.   THE   NEGRO   IN   POLITICS 


VI 

RACE  FRICTION* 

ON  THE  evening  of  December  17,  1855,  there  as 
sembled  a  gathering  of  the  coloured  citizens  of  the 
city  of  Boston  to  do  honour  to  a  member  of  their  race. 
The  man  was  William  C.  Nell,  a  name  familiar  to 
students  of  Negro  history.  The  occasion  was  the 
presentation  to  him  of  a  testimonial  of  appreciation 
of  his  labours  in  behalf  of  the  removal  of  the  colour 
line  from  the  public  schools  of  Boston.  The  event 
commemorated  the  crowning  achievement  of  a  purpose 
formed  and  a  work  begun  some  twenty-six  years  before. 
It  marked  the  close  of  a  quarter  century  of  patient  and 
unremitting  struggle  with  established  law  and  custom. 
The  meeting  was  made  memorable  by  the  presence  of 
such  men  as  Wendell  Phillips  and  William  Lloyd  Garri 
son,  who  rejoiced  with  their  coloured  brethren  that 
"the  prejudice  against  colour  was  dying  out."  This 
was  the  keynote  of  all  the  addresses  made  —  the  faith 
that  the  final  surrender  of  this  long-stormed  citadel 
marked  the  passing  of  the  prejudice  of  race. 

Fifty-two   years  later,   in   November,    1907,   a  great 
concourse  of   Boston's  coloured  citizens   assembled  in 


*  A  paper  read  before  the  Second  Annual  Meeting  of  the  American  Sociological 
Society,  Madison,  Wis.,  Dec.  30,  igof.on  the  question,  "Is  Race  Friction  Between 
Blacks  and  Whites  in  the  United  States  Growing  and  Inevitable?" 

311 


2i2     The  American  Race  Problem 

Faneuil  Hall  to  protest  against  the  steady  and  wide 
increase  of  race  prejudice  in  America.  The  meeting 
was  addressed  by  the  gray-haired  son  of  the  great 
abolitionist,  in  tones  which  were  far  from  sounding  an 
echo  of  the  hopeful,  long  forgotten  words  of  his  father. 

And  after  this  more  than  half  century  of  American 
advance  in  moral  and  intellectual  and  material  things, 
we  too  have  come  together,  in  the  free  atmosphere  of 
this  academic  seat,  to  consider  coolly  and  dispassion 
ately  the  causes  which  really  lay  behind  these  two 
meetings  in  Boston  —  further  apart  in  spirit  and  in 
purpose  than  in  time.  We  have  come  to  inquire 
whether  friction  between  the  white  and  Negro  races 
in  America  is  growing  and  inevitable. 

In  the  first  place,  what  is  race  friction?  To  answer 
this  elementary  question  it  is  necessary  to  define  the 
abstract  mental  quality  upon  which  race  friction 
finally  rests.  This  is  racial  "antipathy'*  —  popularly 
spoken  of  as  "race  prejudice."  Whereas  prejudice 
means  a  mere  predilection,  either  for  or  against,  antip 
athy  means  "natural  contrariety,"  "incompatibility," 
or  "repugnancy  of  qualities."  To  quote  the  Century 
Dictionary,  antipathy  "expresses  most  of  constitu 
tional  feeling  and  least  of  volition";  "it  is  a  dislike 
that  seems  constitutional  toward  persons,  things, 
conduct,  etc.;  hence  it  involves  a  dislike  for  which 
sometimes  no  good  reason  can  be  given."  I  would 
define  racial  antipathy,  then,  as  a  natural  contrariety, 
repugnancy  of  qualities,  or  incompatibility,  between 
individuals  or  groups  which  are  sufficiently  different!- 


Race  Friction  213 

ated  to  constitute  what,  for  want  of  a  more  exact 
term,  we  call  races.  What  is  most  important  is  that 
it  involves  an  instinctive  feeling  of  dislike,  distaste, 
or  repugnance,  for  which  sometimes  no  good  reason 
can  be  given.  Friction  is  defined  primarily  as  a  "lack 
of  harmony,"  or  a  "mutual  irritation."  In  the  case 
of  races  it  is  accentuated  by  antipathy.  We  do  not 
have  to  depend  on  race  riots  or  other  acts  of  violence 
as  a  measure  of  the  growth  of  race  friction.  Its  exist 
ence  may  be  manifested  by  a  look  or  a  gesture  as  well 
as  by  a  word  or  an  act. 

A  verbal  cause  of  much  useless  and  unnecessary 
controversy  is  found  in  the  use  of  the  word  "race." 
When  we  speak  of  "race  problems"  or  "racial  antip 
athies,"  what  do  we  mean  by  "race"?  Clearly 
nothing  scientifically  definite,  since  ethnologists  them 
selves  are  not  agreed  upon  any  classification  of  the 
human  family  along  racial  lines.  Nor  would  this  so- 
called  race  prejudice  have  the  slightest  regard  for 
such  classification  if  one  were  agreed  upon.  It  is 
something  which  is  not  bounded  by  the  confines  of  a 
philological  or  ethnological  definition.  The  British 
scientist  may  tell  the  British  soldier  in  India  that  the 
native  is  in  reality  his  brother,  and  that  it  is  wholly 
absurd  and  illogical  and  unscientific  for  such  a  thing 
as  "race  prejudice"  to  exist  between  them.  Tommy 
Atkins  simply  replies  with  a  shrug  that  to  him  and  his 
messmates  the  native  is  a  "nigger,  "  and  in  so  far  as  their 
attitude  is  concerned  that  is  the  end  of  the  matter. 
The  same  suggestion,  regardless  of  the  scientific  ac- 


2H      The  American  Race  Problem 

curacy  of  the  parallel,  if  made  to  the  American  soldier 
in  the  Philippines,  meets  with  the  same  reply. 
We  have  wasted  an  infinite  amount  of  time  in  inter 
minable  controversies  over  the  relative  superiority 
and  inferiority  of  different  races.  Such  discussions 
have  a  certain  value  when  conducted  by  scientific  men 
in  a  purely  scientific  spirit.  But  for  the  purpose  of 
explaining  or  establishing  any  fixed  principle  of  race 
relations  they  are  little  better  than  worthless.  The 
Japanese  is  doubtless  quite  well  satisfied  of  the  superior 
ity  of  his  people  over  the  mushroom  growths  of  Western 
civilisation,  and  finds  no  difficulty  in  borrowing  from 
the  latter  whatever  is  worth  reproducing,  and  improving 
on  it  in  adapting  it  to  his  own  racial  needs.  The 
Chinese  do  not  waste  their  time  in  idle  chatter  OVQT  the 
relative  status  of  their  race,  as  compared  with  the  wnite 
barbarians  who  have  intruded  themselves  upon  them 
with  their  grotesque  customs,  their  heathenish  ideas 
and  their  childishly  new  religion.  The  Hindu  regards 
with  veiled  contempt  the  racial  pretensions  of  his 
conqueror,  and  while  biding  the  time  when  the  darker 
races  of  the  earth  shall  once  more  come  into  their  own, 
does  not  bother  himself  with  such  an  idle  question  as 
whether  his  temporary  overlord  is  his  racial  equal. 
Only  the  white  man  writes  volumes  to  establish  on 
paper  the  fact  of  a  superiority  which  is  either  self- 
evident  and  not  in  need  of  demonstration,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  is  not  a  fact  and  is  not  demonstrable,  on  the 
other.  The  really  important  matter  is  one  about 
which  there  need  be  little  dispute  —  the  fact  of  racial 


Race  Friction  215 

differences.  It  is  the  practical  question  of  differences 
-the  fundamental  differences  of  physical  appearance, 
of  mental  habit  and  thought,  of  social  customs  and 
religious  beliefs,  of  the  thousand  and  one  things  keenly 
and  clearly  appreciable,  yet  sometimes  elusive  and 
un definable  —  these  are  the  things  which  at  once 
create  and  find  expression  in  what  we  call  race  problems 
and  race  prejudices,  for  want  of  better  terms.  In 
just  so  far  as  these  differences  are  the  fixed  and  per 
manently  associated  characteristics  of  two  groups  of 
people  will  the  antipathies  and  problems  between  the 
two  be  permanent.  We  speak  loosely  of  the  race 
problems  which  are  the  result  of  European  immigration. 
These  are  really  not  race  problems  at  all.  They  are 
purely  temporary  problems,  based  upon  temporary 
antipathies  between  different  groups  of  the  same  race, 
which  invariably  disappear  in  one  or  two  generations, 
and  which  form  only  a  temporary  barrier  to  physical 
assimilation  by  intermarriage  with  native  stocks. 

Probably  the  closest  approach  we  shall  ever  make 
to  a  satisfactory  classification  of  races,  as  a  basis  of 
antipathy  will  be  that  of  grouping  men  according  to 
colour,  along  certain  broad  lines,  the  colour  being  ac 
companied  by  various  and  often  widely  different,  but 
always  fairly  persistent,  differentiating  physical  and 
mental  characteristics.  This  would  give  us  substanti 
ally  the  white  —  not  Caucasian,  the  yellow  —  not 
Chinese  or  Japanese,  and  the  dark  —  not  Negro,  races. 
The  antipathies  between  these  general  groups,  and 
between  certain  of  their  sub-divisions,  will  be  found 


216     The  American  Race  Problem 

to  be  essentially  fundamental,  but  they  will  also  be 
found  to  present  almost  endless  differences  of  degrees 
of  actual  and  potential  acuteness.  Here  elementary 
psychology  also  plays  its  part.  One  of  the  sub-divi 
sions  of  the  Negro  race  is  composed  of  persons  of  mixed 
blood.  In  many  instances  these  are  more  white  than 
black,  yet  the  association  of  ideas  has  through  several 
generations  identified  them  with  the  Negro  —  and  in 
this  country  friction  between  this  class  and  white  people 
is  on  some  lines  even  greater  than  between  whites  and 
blacks. 

Race  conflicts  are  merely  the  more  pronounced 
concrete  expressions  of  such  friction.  They  are  the 
visible  phenomena  of  the  abstract  quality  of  racial 
antipathy  —  the  tangible  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
racial  problems.  The  form  of  such  expressions  of  antip 
athy  varies  with  the  nature  of  the  racial  contact  in  each 
instance.  Their  different  and  widely  varying  aspects 
are  the  confusing^  and  often  contradictory  phenomena 
of  race  relations.  They  are  dependent  upon  diverse 
conditions,  and  are  no  more  susceptible  of  rigid  and 
permanent  classification  than  are  the  whims  and  moods 
of  human  nature.  It  is  more  than  a  truism  to  say  that 
a  condition  precedent  to  race  friction  or  race  conflict 
is  contact  between  sufficient  numbers  of  two  diverse 
racial  groups.  There  is  a  definite  and  positive  difference 
between  contact  between  individuals  and  contact 
between  masses.  The  association  between  two  isolated 
individual  members  of  two  races  may  be  wholly  different 
from  contact  between  masses  of  the  same  race  groups. 


Race  Friction  217 

The  factor  of  numbers  embraces  indeed  the  very  crux 
of  the  problems  arising  from  contact  between  different 
races. 

A  primary  cause  of  race  friction  is  the  vague,  rather 
intangible,  but  wholly  real  feeling  of  "pressure"  which 
comes  to  the  white  man  almost  instinctively  in  the 
presence  of  a  mass  of  people  of  a  different  race.  In  a 
certain  important  sense  all  racial  problems  are  dis 
tinctly  problems  of  racial  distribution.  Certainly  the 
definite  action  of  the  controlling  race,  particularly  as 
expressed  in  laws,  is  determined  by  the  factor  of  the 
numerical  difference  between  its  population  and  that 
of  the  inferior  group.  This  fact  stands  out  prominently 
in  the  history  of  our  colonial  legislation  for  the  control 
of  Negro  slaves.  These  laws  increased  in  severity,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  as  the  slave  population  increased 
in  numbers.  The  same  condition  is  disclosed  in  the 
history  of  the  ante  bellum  legislation  of  the  Southern, 
Eastern,  New  England,  and  Middle  Western  states  for 
the  control  of  the  free  Negro  population.  So  to-day, 
no  state  in  the  Union  would  have  separate  car  laws 
where  the  Negro  constituted  only  10  or  15  per 
cent,  of  its  total  population.  No  state  would  burden 
itself  with  the  maintenance  of  two  separate  school 
systems  with  a  Negro  element  of  less  than  10  per  cent. 
Means  of  local  separation  might  be  found,  but  there 
would  be  no  expression  of  law  on  the  subject. 

Just  as  a  heavy  increase  of  Negro  population  makes 
for  an  increase  of  friction,  direct  legislation,  the  pro 
tection  of  drastic  social  customs,  and  a  general  feeling 


2i8     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  unrest  or  uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the  white  popula 
tion,  so  a  decrease  of  such  population,  or  a  relatively 
small  increase  as  compared  with  the  whites,  makes 
for  less  friction,  greater  racial  tolerance,  and  a  lessening 
of  the  feeling  of  necessity  for  severely  discriminating 
laws  or  customs.  And  this,  quite  aside  from  the  fact 
of  a  difference  of  increase  or  decrease  of  actual  points 
of  contact,  varying  with  differences  of  numbers.  The 
statement  will  scarcely  be  questioned  that  the  general 
attitude  of  the  white  race,  as  a  whole,  toward  the  Negro 
would  become  much  less  uncompromising  if  we  were  to 
discover  that  through  two  census  periods  the  race  had 
shown  a  positive  decrease  in  numbers.  Racial  antip 
athy  would  not  decrease,  but  the  conditions  which 
provoke  its  outward  expression  would  undergo  a  change 
for  the  better.  There  is  a  direct  relation  between  the 
mollified  attitude  of  the  people  of  the  Pacific  coast 
toward  the  Chinese  population  and  the  fact  that  the 
Chinese  population  decreased  between  1890  and  1900. 
There  would  in  time  be  a  difference  of  feeling  toward 
the  Japanese  now  there  if  the  immigration  of  more 
were  prohibited  by  treaty  stipulation.  There  is  the 
same  immediate  relation  between  the  tolerant  attitude 
of  the  whites  toward  the  natives  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands 
and  the  feeling  that  the  native  is  a  decadent  and  dying 
race.  Aside  from  the  influence  of  the  Indian's  warlike 
qualities  and  of  his  refusal  to  submit  to  slavery,  the 
attitude  and  disposition  of  the  white  race  toward  him 
have  been  influenced  by  considerations  similar  to  those 
which  to-day  operate  in  Hawaii.  And  the  same 


Race  Friction 


219 


influence  has  been  a  factor  in  determining  the  attitude 
of  the  English  toward  the  slowly  dying  Maoris  of  New 
Zealand. 

The  character  and  violence  of  race  friction  or  conflict 
will  depend  upon  the  immediately  provoking  cause, 
but  will  be  influenced  by  a  variety  of  accompanying 
considerations.  Open  manifestations  of  antipathy  will 
be  aggravated  if  each  group  feels  its  superiority  over 
the  other.  They  will  be  fewer  and  milder  when  one 
race  accepts  the  position  of  inferiority  outwardly  or 
really  feels  the  superiority  of  the  other.  In  all  cases 
the  element  of  individual  or  racial  self-assertiveness 
plays  an  important  part.  The  white  man  on  the 
Pacific  coast  may  insist  that  he  does  not  feel  anything 
like  the  race  prejudice  toward  the  Chinaman  that  he 
does  toward  the  Japanese.  In  truth  the  antipathy 
is  equal  in  either  case,  but  the  Chinaman  accepts  the 
position  and  imputation  of  inferiority  —  no  matter 
what  or  how  he  may  really  feel  beneath  his  passive 
exterior.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Japanese  neither 
accepts  the  position  nor  plays  the  role  of  an  inferior — • 
and  when  attacked  he  does  not  run.  Aside  from  all 
question  of  the  relative  commendable  traits  of  the 
two  races,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  characteristics  of 
one  group  are  much  more  likely  than  those  of  the  other 
to  provoke  outbreaks  of  antipathy  when  brought  into 
contact  with  the  white  race.  We  need  not  ask  what 
would  be  the  situation  in  India,  and  what  the  size  of 
the  British  garrison  there,  if  the  Hindu  had  the  assert 
ive  and  pugnacious  characteristics  of  the  Japanese  — 


220     The  American  Race  Problem 

veiled  though  the  latter  are  behind  a  bland  and  smiling 
demeanour. 

It  is  a  common  remark  that  the  relations  between 
the  white  and  Negro  races  in  this  country  are  not  "as 
good,"  as  the  expression  runs,  as  they  were  before  the 
war.  The  fundamental  cause  of  most  race  friction 
is  in  the  operation  of  racial  antipathy  which  leads  to 
the  denial  by  one  race  of  the  racial  equality  of  another, 
coupled  with  the  assertion  of  equality  by  the  other 
party  to  the  contact.  Post  bellum  racial  difficulties 
are  largely  the  manifestation  of  friction  growing  out 
of  the  novel  claim  to  equality  made  by  the  Negro  after 
emancipation,  either  by  specific  declaration  and  as 
sertion,  or  by  conduct  which  was  equivalent  to  an  open 
claim,  with  the  refusal  of  the  white  man  to  recognise 
the  claim.  The  commonest  mistake  of  race  problem 
discussions  is  that  of  treating  such  problems  as  a  heri 
tage  from  slavery.  Slavery  was  responsible  only  in 
so  far  as  it  was  responsible  for  bringing  the  races  into 
contact.  The  institution,  per  se,  was  not  only  not  the 
cause  of  the  problem,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  actually 
furnished  a  basis  of  contact  which  as  long  as  it  existed 
minimised  the  problems  which  result  from  racial  con 
tact  upon  a  plane  of  theoretical  equality.  We  may 
obtain  a  conception  of  an  American  race  problem 
without  the  background  of  antecedent  slavery  relations, 
if  we  can  imagine  the  situation  which  would  be  created 
by  the  precipitation  upon  the  population  of  the  Pacific 
coast  of  a  million  Japanese.  The  late  Professor  Shaler, 
of  Harvard,  summed  up  with  absolute  accuracy  the 


Race  Friction  221 

function  of  slavery  in  making  possible  relations  of 
mutual  amity  between  the  white  and  Negro  races  in 
this  country,  when  he  declared  that,  "The  one  condi 
tion  in  which  very  diverse  races  may  be  brought  into 
close  social  relations  without  much  danger  of  hatred, 
destructive  to  the  social  order,  is  when  an  inferior  race  is 
enslaved  by  a  superior."  His  opinion  was  that  "this 
form  of  union  is  stronger  than  it  has  appeared  to  those 
who  have  allowed  their  justifiable  dislike  of  the  relation 
to  prejudice  them  as  to  its  consequences."  Professor 
Shaler  struck  one  of  the  keynotes  of  the  ante  bellum 
situation  when  he  said  that  slavery  made  impossible 
any  sort  of  rivalry  between  the  races.  He  declared 
his  utter  detestation  of  the  institution,  but  said  it 
should  be  recognised  that  "it  was  effective  in  the 
prevention  of  race  hatreds."  To  quote  his  words: 
"Moreover,  it  brought  the  two  races  into  a  position 
where  there  was  no  longer  any  instinctive  repugnance 
to  each  other,  derived  from  the  striking  differences 
of  colour  or  of  form.  If  the  Negroes  had  been  cast 
upon  this  shore  under  any  other  conditions  than  those 
of  slavery,  they  would  have  been  unable  to  obtain  this 
relation  with  the  whites  which  their  condition  of  bond 
age  gave."* 

But  Professor  Shaler  recognised  the  innate  potential 
force  of  antipathy  of  race  and  he  observed  that,  "It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  race  hatred,  which  was 
essentially  lost  during  the  period  of  slavery,  will  return 
in  the  conditions  of  freedom."  Twenty-one  years  have 

*"Race  Prejudice,"  N.  S.  Shaler,  Atlantic  Monthly,  October  1886,  pp. Si 6,  517, 


222     The  American  Race  Problem 

elapsed  since  Professor  Shaler  wrote,  and  it  is  in  the 
light  of  these  two  decades  of  additional  experience 
that  we  are  to-day  attempting  to  answer  his  query. 

It  is  impossible  to  discuss  here,  as  I  should  like  to  do, 
the  broader  question  of  race  relations,  as  preliminary 
to  an  inquiry  into  relations  in  this  country  between 
whites  and  Negroes.  We  may,  however,  suggest  some 
of  the  more  elementary  principles  of  such  relations  as  a 
basis  for  a  reply  to  the  concrete  question  before  us. 
In  the  first  place,  I  lay  down  as  a  fundamental  law  of 
racial  contact  the  proposition  that  the  terms  and 
conditions  of  racial  association  will  be  dictated  by  the 
stronger  of  the  two  parties  to  such  association  — 
actuated  by  motives  of  self-interest,  or  by  instincts  of 
self-preservation.*  In  the  second  place,  the  resulting 
relations  will  be  least  conducive  to  friction  when  the 
terms  insisted  upon  by  the  stronger  race  are  accepted 
without  protest  by  the  weaker.  The  converse  of  this 
follows  as  a  corollary  —  that  the  relations  which  are 
most  conducive  to  friction  are  those  under  which  the 
conditions  laid  down  by  the  stronger  party  are  not 
accepted  by  the  weaker.  The  friction  which  racial 
contact  engenders  under  such  conditions  will  be  in 
proportion  to  the  degree  of  the  insistence  of  one  party 
upon  its  terms  of  association,  and  of  the  resistance  to 
such  conditions  offered  by  the  other. 

The  absence  of  ante  bellum  racial  friction  was  due 
to  the  general  acceptance  by  the  Negro  of  the  status 
assigned  him  by  the  white  race.  The  further  removed 

*  For  a  fuller  statement  see  pp.  54  et  seq.  and  57  et  seq. 


Race  Friction  223 

the  two  races  are  from  this  basis  of  association,  which 
Professor  Shaler  declared  to  be  the  only  one  upon  which 
they  could  safely  have  been  brought  together  in  the 
first  place  —  the  greater  the  probability  that  friction 
will  follow  contact  between  them.  The  whole  matter 
resolves  itself  into  very  simple  terms.  The  simpler 
the  relations  between  diverse  races,  the  less  friction 
there  will  be ;  the  more  complex  the  relations,  the  greater 
the  friction.  The  simplest  relations  possible  are  those 
in  which  the  relative  status  of  superior  and  inferior  is 
mutually  accepted  as  the  historical,  essential,  and 
matter-of-fact  basis  of  relationship  between  the  two. 
The  most  complex  relation  possible  between  any  two 
racial  groups  is  that  of  a  theoretical  equality  which 
one  race  denies  and  the  other  insists  upon.  The  ac 
cepted  relation  of  superior  and  inferior  may  exist  not 
only  without  bitterness  on  one  side  or  harsh  feelings 
upon  the  other,  but  it  may  be  characterised  by  a  senti 
ment  and  affection  wholly  impossible  between  the  same 
groups  under  conditions  demanding  a  recognition  of 
so-called  equality.  We  should  try  to  gain  a  clear  grasp 
of  the  importance  of  this  mutual  recognition  of  a 
different  racial  status  in  minimising  racial  friction, 
and  of  the  significance  of  the  converse  condition  in 
increasing  it. 

The  Northern  white  man  often  remarks  upon  the 
inconsistent  position  of  the  Southern  white  man.  The 
former  objects  more  than  the  latter  to  personal  contact 
and  association  with  the  Negro  —  but  theoretically 
he  is  willing  to  grant  to  the  Negro  the  full  exercise  of 


224     The  American  Race  Problem 

all  the  legal  rights  and  privileges  which  he  himself 
enjoys.  The  Southern  white  man,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  not  object  to  personal  association  with  the  Negro  — 
provided  it  be  upon  terms  which  contain  no  suggestion 
of  equality  of  personal  status  —  but  he  is  not  willing 
to  grant  the  privileges  which  his  Northern  brother 
concedes  to  the  race  in  the  mass.  The  truth  is  that 
the  difference  between  their  respective  attitudes  is 
largely  a  matter  of  fiction.  It  is  more  apparent  than 
real.  The  attitude  of  the  Northern  man  toward  the 
matter  of  personal  association  is  really  the  natural 
attitude  of  the  white  man.  It  is  the  unconscious 
expression  or  feeling  of  instinctive  racial  antipathy 
in  its  elementary  form.  The  attitude  of  the  Southern 
man  toward  the  same  association  is  in  reality  the 
wholly  artificial  product  of  the  relations  made  possible 
by  slavery.  The  Northern  man  prides  himself  on  not 
"looking  down  on  the  Negro,"  as  the  expression  goes. 
He  regards  him  unconsciously  as  theoretically,  poten 
tially,  his  racial  equal.  His  unconscious  mental  attitude 
does  not  immediately  upon  personal  contact  establish 
between  himself  and  the  Negro  the  relation  of  superior 
and  inferior.  He  is  conscious  only  of  strangeness, 
difference.  But  in  the  presence  of  this  difference  his 
mind  reacts  normally,  and  a  sufficient  degree  of  latent 
antipathy  is  aroused  to  create  a  natural  barrier,  which 
he  merely  "feels"  and  does  not  attempt  to  explain. 
On  the  other  hand,  through  the  influence  of  generations 
of  association  under  the  purely  artificial  relations  of 
slavery,  the  mind  of  the  Southern  white  man  instinc- 


Race  Friction  225 

tively  responds  to  accustomed  contact  upon  inherited 
lines  with  the  unconscious  concept  of  an  inequality 
of  racial  status  which  neutralises  or  prevents  the 
operation  of  racial  antipathy.  In  other  words,  to 
borrow  Professor  Shaler's  illustration  of  the  operation 
of  slavery  in  destroying  race  hatred  —  the  long  con 
tinued  association  has  destroyed  the  normal  operation 
of  elementary  racial  antipathy.  In  its  primary  form, 
it  is  simply  not  provoked  by  an  association  to  which 
it  has  long  become  accustomed.  It  may  be  asked 
at  once,  if  such  association  has  been  sufficient  to  thus 
impair  what  is  claimed  to  be  an  instinctive  mental 
impulse,  and  not  only  to  do  this,  but  to  establish  in 
lieu  of  such  a  feeling  relations  and  sentiments  of 
genuine  and  unquestioned  affection  —  why  then  is  it 
not  able  to  destroy  all  racial  antipathy  and  thereby 
in  time  enable  the  races  to  live  together  in  absolute 
concord?  Where  is  the  ground  for  even  the  possibility 
of  increased  racial  friction?  The  answer  is  not  difficult. 
The  potential  results  of  such  long  continued  racial  con 
tact  and  association  may  be  fully  granted,  for  the  sake 
of  discussion.  But  the  question  is  the  primary  one  of 
accomplishing  the  association.  Our  original  proposi 
tion  is  that  racial  harmony  is  greatest  under  an  associa 
tion  determined  by  one  party  and  accepted  by  the 
other.  This  was  precisely  what  made  for  such  relations 
under  slavery.  But  slavery  is  dead  —  and  with  the 
passing  of  the  generation  of  whose  life  it  was  an  accepted 
part,  both  black  and  white,  the  relations  which  it  slowly 
evolved  are  passing  also.  A  new  basis  of  contact  is. 


226     The  American  Race  Problem 

presented  —  that  of  unconditional  equality.  It  is  a 
basis  which  the  white  race  is  not  willing  to  concede 
in  practice,  whatever  the  white  man  may  do  in  theory  — 
and  hence  we  have  the  essential  elements  of  racial 
friction  —  a  demand  for  and  a  denial  of  racial  equality. 
Whether  or  not  race  friction  in  the  United  States 
is  increasing  and  inevitable  depends  upon  the  attitude 
of  the  two  parties  to  the  racial  contact.  Does  the 
American  Negro  demand  racial  equality,  and  does  the 
American  white  man  deny  it?  The  latter  branch  of 
the  question  we  shall  attempt  to  answer  first.  Racial 
antipathy,  which  we  have  said  to  be  the  basis  for  the 
"lack  of  harmony,"  the  "mutual  irritation,"  which 
we  translate  as  race  friction,  is  practically  universal 
on  the  part  of  the  white  race  toward  the  Negro,  and  is 
beyond  question  stronger  in  the  so-called  Anglo-Saxon 
stocks  than  in  any  other.  If  it  is  less  apparent  in  one 
place  than  in  another,  the  difference  is  a  mere  incident 
to  differences  of  local  condition.  It  is  protean  in  its 
manifestations  —  and  subject  to  such  a  variety  of 
provoking  causes  as  to  defy  classification.  It  is  ex 
hibited  here  in  the  individual  and  there  in  the  mass, 
and  elsewhere  in  both.  One  man  may  draw  the  line 
against  association  in  a  public  conveyance,  another  at 
the  relations  of  domestic  service.  One  may  draw  it  in 
the  public  dining-room  of  a  hotel  —  another  at  his 
private  table.  One  man  or  one  section  may  draw  it  in 
the  public  schools  —  another  only  in  fashionable 
establishments  for  fashionable  young  women,  or  in 
private  academies  for  boys.  Here  and  there  we  find 


Race  Friction  227 

a  man  who  realises  no  feeling  at  such  contact,  and  he 
imagines  himself  to  be  "free  from  race  prejudice." 
But  even  for  him  there  exists  the  point  of  racial  recoil  — 
though  it  may  be  reached  only  at  the  altar  or  the  grave. 
It  is,  after  all,  merely  a  difference  of  degree.  Racial 
antipathy  is  a  present,  latent  force  in  us  all.  As  to 
this  we  need  not  deceive  ourselves. 

At  no  time  in  the  history  of  the  English  speaking 
people,  and  at  no  place,  of  which  we  have  any  record, 
where  large  numbers  of  them  have  been  brought  into 
contact  with  an  approximately  equal  number  of  Negroes, 
have  the  former  granted  to  the  latter  absolute  equality, 
either  political,  social,  or  economic.  With  the  exception 
of  five  New  England  states,  with  a  total  Negro  popula 
tion  of  only  16,084  in  1860,  every  state  in  the  Union 
discriminated  against  the  Negro  politically  before 
the  Civil  War.  The  white  people  continued  to  do  so  — 
North  as  well  as  South  —  as  long  as  they  retained 
control  of  the  suffrage  regulations  of  their  states.  The 
determination  to  do  so  renders  one  whole  section  of 
the  country  practically  a  political  unit  to  this  day. 
In  South  Africa  we  see  the  same  determination  of  the 
white  man  to  rule,  regardless  of  the  numerical  superiority 
of  the  black.  The  same  determination  made  Jamaica 
surrender  the  right  of  self-government,  and  renders 
her  satisfied  with  a  hybrid  political  arrangement  to-day. 
The  presence  of  practically  100,000  Negroes  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  makes  200,000  white  people 
content  to  live  under  an  anomaly  in  a  self-governing 
country.  The  proposition  is  too  elementary  for  dis- 


228     The  American  Race  Problem 

cussion,  that  the  white  man  when  confronted  with  a 
sufficient  number  of  Negroes  to  create  in  his  mind  a 
sense  of  political  unrest  or  danger,  either  alters  his 
form  of  government  in  order  to  be  rid  of  the  incubus, 
or  destroys  the  political  strength  of  the  Negro  by  force, 
by  evasion,  or  by  direct  action. 

If  we  survey  the  field  of  economic  contact  we  find 
but  one  considerable  area  in  which  the  white  man 
permits  the  Negro  to  share  his  occupancy  practically 
upon  equal  terms.  That  field  is  the  Southern  part  of 
the  United  States.  The  unusual  conditions  there  are 
the  direct  and  immediate  product  of  relations  es 
tablished  or  made  possible  by  slavery  —  coupled 
with  the  maintenance  of  a  rigid  colour  line,  which 
minimises,  if  it  does  not  prevent,  racial  friction.  This 
condition,  like  the  other  purely  artificial  products  of 
slavery  favourable  to  amicable  race  relations,  is  chang 
ing,  and  will  disappear  with  the  increased  tendency 
toward  general  uniformity  of  labour  conditions  and 
demands  throughout  the  country.  Such  measure  of 
freedom  of  economic  opportunity  as  the  Negro  has  is 
not  due  to  any  superior  virtue  on  the  part  of  Southern 
people,  any  more  than  is  the  larger  political  tolerance 
of  the  North  due  to  any  peculiar  virtue  of  that  section. 
Each  situation  is  a  mere  incident  of  general  racial 
conditions.  Outside  the  South,  whether  in  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Chicago,  the  Middle  West,  or  New  England, 
the  absence  of  economic  racial  friction  is  due  to  the 
economic  segregation  of  the  Negro.  The  race  outside 
the  South  is  in  the  main  confined  to  humbler  occupa- 


Race  Friction  229 

tions,  where  the  absence  of  white  competition  makes 
for  racial  peace.  I  am  speaking  of  the  many,  not  of 
the  exceptional  few  who  here  and  there  are  not  dis 
criminated  against.  What  is  true  of  the  North  is 
true  of  South  Africa.  Economically,  every  country 
apparently  is  either  a  "white  man's  country"  or  a 
"black  man's  country."  It  does  not  exist  half  one 
and  half  the  other  —  always  excepting  the  South.  In 
South  Africa  the  great  problem  is  to  get  white  men  to 
work  at  trades  with  black  men,  or  to  permit  black  men 
to  work  at  them  at  all.  The  white  colonist  either 
monopolises  a  field  himself  —  despite  the  fact  that  his 
numbers  render  the  effort  ruinous  —  or  he  permits  the 
Negro  to  monopolise  it.  He  will  not  share  it  equally. 

But  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  relations  which  the  world 
calls  social  that  the  white  man's  attitude  toward  the 
Negro  becomes  most  uncompromising  —  at  least  the 
attitude  of  the  English  speaking  white  man.  This, 
too,  is  universal.  This  social  prejudice  is  no  respecter 
of  geographical  lines.  Its  intensity  varies  of  course 
with  local  influences  —  primarily  with  differences  of 
numerical  distribution.  But  that  is  a  mere  superficial 
consideration.  This  form  of  "race  prejudice,"  if  we 
elect  so  to  designate  it,  is  probably  more  fundamental 
and  far  reaching  than  any  other. 

This  fact  is  clearly  recognised  by  Professor  Kelly 
Miller,  of  Howard  University,  who  says:  "Where  two 
races  of  widely  different  corporal  peculiarities  and 
cultivated  qualities  are  brought  into  contact,  serious 
frictional  problems  inevitably  arise.  .  .  .  The 


230     The  American  Race  Problem 

American  Negro  may  speak  the  same  language,  con 
form  to  the  same  institutions,  and  adopt  the  same 
mode  of  religious  worship  as  the  rest  of  his  fellow  men, 
but  it  avails  him  nothing  in  the  scale  of  social  eligibility, 
which  is  the  one  determinative  test  of  all  true  equal 
ity.  .  .  .  Without  social  equality,  which  the  Teu 
ton  is  sworn  to  withhold  from  the  darker  races,  no  other 
form  of  equality  is  possible."* 

I  shall  add  this  further  reflection:  If  slavery  is  the 
cause  of  race  prejudice,  why  has  slavery  not  produced 
it  among  the  Arabs  toward  their  Negro  slaves  ?  Slavery 
is  not  the  cause,  nor  is  the  Christian  religion  its  cure, 
nor  does  Mohammedanism  or  Catholicism  prevent  it. 
The  reason  of  its  non-existence  among  the  Moham 
medans  is  not  because  of  Mohammedanism,  but  because 
the  Mohammedan  is  an  Arab  or  a  Moor.  It  does  exist 
among  the  Berbers  of  Morocco,  notwithstanding  their 
Moslem  faith.  These  Berbers  are  not  only  prejudiced 
against  the  Negroes,  but  their  prejudice  has  created 
continual  unrest  in  Morocco,  through  their  refusal  to 
fully  acknowledge  the  present  Sultan  because  of  his 
Negro  blood.  The  reason  this  prejudice  is  less  pro 
nounced  in  Catholic  than  in  Protestant  countries  is 
because  of  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  countries  which 
have  had  most  to  do  with  Negroes  are  mainly  Latin 
countries,  and  the  Latin's  prejudice  of  colour  is  no 
where  as  strong  as  the  Teuton's.  Under  similar  racial 
conditions  the  Catholic  Teuton  is  just  as  much  influenced 


*  Southern   Workman,  November,  1900,  pp.  601,  602.     See  also  page  325  for 
fuller  quotation. 


Race  Friction  231 

by  racial  antipathy  as  his  Protestant  brother.  It  is 
not  a  question  of  religion  or  slavery  —  of  Protestantism 
or  Catholicism.  It  is  finally  and  fundamentally  a 
question  of  race. 

In  spite  of  all  our  protestations  of  democracy,  the 
people  of  this  country  are  not  superior  in  their  racial 
charity  to  the  people  of  other  parts  of  the  world.  I 
question  if  we  are  even  as  liberal  in  that  regard  as  the 
average  of  Caucasian  mankind.  I  sometimes  feel 
that  the  very  democracy  among  American  white  men 
of  which  we  boast  so  much  develops  a  concomitant 
intolerance  toward  men  of  another  race  or  colour. 
Without  other  fixed  or  established  distinctions  in  our 
social  order,  we  seem  instinctively  to  take  refuge  in 
that  of  colour  as  an  enduring  line  of  separation 
between  ourselves  and  another  class.  Now  and  then, 
as  the  Southern  part  of  our  country  comes  to  be  more 
dispassionately  studied,  an  occasional  observer  finds 
himself  puzzled  by  the  conclusion  that  among  its  white 
population  the  South,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  the  most 
democratic  part  of  America.  In  the  presence  of  the 
Negro,  and  by  contrast  and  comparison,  all  white  men 
are  equal.  A  horizontal  racial  line  is  drawn  between 
the  two  sections  of  the  population.  All  on  one  side  of 
the  line  are  conceded  certain  privileges  and  a  certain 
status,  based  not  upon  merit  but  solely  upon  the  ac 
cident  of  colour.  To  the  whole  group  on  the  other 
side  of  the  line  a  certain  status  is  assigned  solely  be 
cause  of  identity  with  another  racial  class.  In  each 
case  what  should  be  controlling  differences  within  each 


232      The  American  Race  Problem 

group,  along  certain  fairly  tangible  lines,  are  wholly 
ignored.  In  steadily  increasing  degree,  it  seems  to 
me,  certain  privileges  and  a  certain  place  in  the  larger 
life  of  the  country  are  coming  to  be  regarded  as  the 
peculiar  and  particular  asset  of  Caucasian  racial 
affiliation. 

We  have  seen  the  fulfilling  of  DeTocqueville's  pro 
phecy  that  emancipation  would  be  but  the  beginning  of 
America's  racial  problems.  The  history  of  the  world 
is  a  more  open  book  to-day  than  it  was  a  half  or  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  ago,  and  we  have  a  larger  per 
spective  of  racial  contact.  One  of  the  editors  of  "The 
Wealth  of  Nations"  has  justly  said  that  Adam  Smith 
was  instrumental  in  bringing  different  nations  and 
cities  closer  together  through  a  realisation  of  their 
interdependence.  But  there  is  apparently  a  line 
which  distantly  related  races  cannot  yet  cross  in  safety. 
Such  races  have  been  brought  into  more  intimate 
contact  since  the  great  economist  lived,  and  the  as 
sociation  has  given  rise  to  problems  unknown  to  his 
generation,  yet  probably  as  old  as  the  time  when  the 
first  two  groups  of  strangers  on  earth  came  together 
in  suspicion  and  distrust.  The  diverse  peoples  of  the 
world  do  not  yet  understand  each  other.  Perhaps 
they  never  shall.  We  have  no  excuse  if  we  wilfully 
blind  ourselves  to  the  stubbornest  facts  in  human 
experience,  and  persist  in  regarding  racial  antipathy, 
or  "race  prejudice, "  as  a  mere  passing  relic  of  slavery, 
peculiar  to  one  part  of  the  country.  We  can  make 
no  progress  even  in  the  comprehension  of  our  problem 


Race  Friction  233 

if  we  circumscribe  our  vision  by  any  such  narrow  view. 
It  was  Jefferson's  opinion  that  the  emancipation  of  the 
American  Negro  was  one  of  the  inevitable  events  of 
the  future.  It  was  also  his  conviction  that  the  two 
races  could  never  live  together  as  equals  on  American 
soil.  His  solution  was  colonisation,  but  the  time  for 
that  had  probably  passed  when  he  wrote.  As  late  as 
1862  Mr.  Lincoln  expressed  practically  the  same  opinion 
as  Jefferson's.  To  a  delegation  of  Negroes  he  said: 
"You  and  we  are  different  races  .  .  .  Your  race  is 
suffering,  in  my  judgment,  the  greatest  wrong  inflicted  on 
any  people.  But  even  when  you  cease  to  be  slaves, 
you  are  yet  far  removed  from  being  placed  on  an  equality 
with  the  white  race  .  .  .  The  aspiration  of  men  is 
to  enjoy  equality  with  the  best  when  free,  but  on  this 
continent  not  a  single  man  of  your  race  is  made  the 
equal  of  a  single  man  of  ours.  Go  where  you  are 
treated  the  best,  and  the  ban  is  still  upon  you."* 

To  me  the  problems  of  racial  contact,  of  which  fric 
tion  is  but  one,  seem  as  inevitable  as  apparently  they 
did  to  DeTocqueville  and  Jefferson  and  Lincoln.  But 
I  have  no  solution  —  because  of  my  conviction  that 
in  a  larger,  final  sense  there  is  no  solution  of  such 
problems  —  except  the  separation  of  the  races  or  the 
absorption  of  one  by  the  other.  And  in  no  proper 
conception  is  either  of  these  a  "solution."  We  do  not 
solve  a  problem  in  geometry  by  wiping  from  the  black 
board  the  symbols  which  are  the  visible  expression  of 
its  terms.  The  question  which  the  American  people 

*  "Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  Nicolay  and  Hay,  N.  Y.,  1894,  II.,  pp.  222-225. 


234     The  American  Race  Problem 

must  first  be  prepared  to  answer,  if  they  demand  a 
solution  of  their  problem,  is  whether,  within  a  period 
which  may  be  practically  considered,  they  will  grant 
to  another  race,  darker,  physically  different,  and  per 
manently  distinguished  from  themselves,  all  and 
singular  the  rights,  titles,  and  privileges  which  they 
themselves  enjoy,  with  full  and  complete  measure 
of  equality  in  all  things,  absolutely  as  well  as  theoreti 
cally.  If  they  can  do  this,  they  will  reverse  the  whole 
history  of  their  own  people,  and  until  they  do  it,  not 
only  will  there  be  race  friction  here,  but  it  will  increase 
as  the  weaker  race  increases  its  demands  for  the  equality 
which  it  is  denied. 

Thus  we  return  to  the  first  branch  of  our  inquiry  — 
the  attitude  of  the  Negro  as  one  of  the  determining 
factors  in  the  increase  or  decrease  of  race  friction. 
It  is  more  difficult  to  answer  for  him  than  for  the  white 
man.  The  latter  has  a  history  in  the  matter  of  his 
relations  with  other  races  —  perfectly  well  defined 
to  anyone  who  will  study  it  candidly.  He  has  either 
ruled  or  ruined  —  to  express  it  in  a  few  words,  and 
pretty  often  he  has  done  both.  It  has  been  frequently 
said  that  the  Negro  is  the  only  one  of  the  inferior,  or 
weaker,  or  backward,  or  undeveloped  races  (the  terms 
are  largely  interchangeable  and  not  at  all  important), 
which  has  ever  looked  the  white  man  in  the  face  and 
lived.  But  for  all  the  significance  the  statement  holds 
we  have  only  to  go  to  ^Esop's  fable  of  the  tree  which 
would,  and  the  tree  which  would  not,  bend  before  the 
storm.  I  know  of  no  race  in  all  history  which  possesses 


Race  Friction  235 

in  equal  degree  the  marvellous  power  of  adaptability 
to  conditions  which  the  Negro  has  exhibited  through 
many  centuries  and  in  many  places.  His  undeveloped 
mental  state  has  made  it  possible  for  him  to  accept 
conditions,  and  to  increase  and  be  content  under  them, 
which  a  more  highly  organised  and  sensitive  race  would 
have  thrown  off,  or  destroyed  itself  in  the  effort  to  do  so. 
This  ability  to  accept  the  status  of  slavery  and  to  win 
the  affection  and  regard  of  the  master  race,  and  gradu 
ally  but  steadily  to  bring  about  an  amelioration  of  the 
conditions  of  the  slave  status  — •  made  possible  the 
anomalous  and  really  not  yet  understood  race  relations 
of  the  ante  bellum  South.  The  plain  English  of  the 
situation  was  that  the  Negro  did  not  chafe  or  fret  and 
harass  himself  to  death,  where  the  Indian  would  have 
done  so,  or  massacred  the  white  man  as  an  alternative. 
In  many  respects  the  Negro  is  a  model  prisoner — 'the 
best  in  this  country.  He  accepts  the,  situation  — 
generally  speaking  —  bears  na  malice,  cherishes  no  ill 
will  or  resentment,  and  is  cheerful  under  conditions  to 
which  the  white  man  refuses  to  reconcile  himself. 

This  adaptability  of  the  Negro  has  an  immediate 
bearing  on  the  question  before  us.  It  explains  why 
the  Negro  masses  in  the  Southern  states  are  content 
with  their  situation,  or  at  least  not  disturbing  themselves 
sufficiently  over  it  to  attempt  to  upset  the  existing 
order.  In  the  main,  the  millions  in  the  South  live  at 
peace  with  their  white  neighbours.  The  masses,  just 
one  generation  out  of  slavery  and  thousands  of  them 
still  largely  controlled  by  its  influences,  accept  the 


236     The  American  Race  Problem 

superiority  of  the  white  race  as  a  race,  whatever  may 
be  their  private  opinion  of  some  of  its  members.  And, 
furthermore,  they  accept  this  relation  of  superior  and 
inferior,  as  a  mere  matter  of  course  —  as  part  of  their 
lives  —  as  something  neither  to  be  questioned,  wondered 
at,  or  worried  over.  Despite  apparent  impressions  to 
the  contrary,  the  average  Southern  white  man  gives  no 
more  thought  to  the  matter  than  does  the  Negro. 
As  I  tried  to  make  clear  at  the  outset,  the  status  of 
superior  and  inferior  is  simply  an  inherited  part  of  his 
instinctive  mental  equipment  —  a  concept  which  he 
does  not  have  to  reason  out.  The  respective  attitudes 
are  complementary,  and  under  the  mutual  acceptance 
and  understanding  there  still  exist  unnumbered  thou 
sands  of  instances  of  kindly  and  affectionate  relations  — 
relations  of  which  the  outside  world  knows  nothing 
and  understands  nothing.  In  a  Boston  coloured 
magazine  some  months  since,*  Miss  Augusta  P. 
Eaton  gives  an  account  of  her  settlement  work  among 
Negroes  in  that  city.  In  describing  relations  where 
coloured  and  white  families  live  in  contact,  she  says: 
"The  great  bond  of  fellowship  is  never  fully  established. 
There  is  tolerance,  but  I  have  found  few  cases  of  friendly 
intimacy."  Here  is  just  the  difference  between  the 
two  situations.  "Friendly  intimacies,"  probably  not 
in  the  sense  meant  by  Miss  Eaton,  but  friendly  and 
kindly  intimacies  none  the  less,  do  exist  in  the  South, 
despite  all  we  hear  to  the  contrary.  They  are  the 
leaven  of  hope  and  comfort  for  white  and  black  alike 

*  Alexander's  Magazine,  June,  1907,  p.  93. 


Race  Friction  237 

in  what  does  appear  to  be  a  pretty  big  lump  of  discord. 
In  the  mass,  the  Southern  Negro  has  not  bothered 
himself  about  the  ballot  for  more  than  twenty  years  — 
not  since  his  so-called  political  leaders  let  him  alone; 
he  is  not  disturbed  over  the  matter  of  separate  schools 
and  cars,  and  he  neither  knows  nor  cares  anything  about 
"social  equality." 

Ill  I  believe  there  may  develop  in  process  of  time  and 
evolution  a  group  of  contented  people,  occupying  a 
position  somewhat  analagous  to  that  of  the  Jamaican 
peasant  class,  satisfied  in  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty, 
and  ttte  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  afforded  the  full 
protection  of  the  law.  I  believe  it  is  possible  for  each 
of  the  various  groups  of  the  two  races  which  find  them 
selves  in  natural  juxtaposition  to  arrive  at  some  basis 
of  common  occupancy  of  their  respective  territories 
which  shall  be  mutually  satisfactory,  even  if  not  wholly 
free  from  friction.  I  express  a  belief  that  this  is  possible 
—  but  to  its  accomplishment  there  is  one  absolute 
condition  precedent;  they  must  be  let  alone  and  they 
must  be  given  time.  It  must  be  realised  and  accepted, 
whether  we  like  it  or  not,  that  there  is  no  cut  and  dried 
solution  of  such  problems,  and  that  they  cannot  be 
solved  by  resolutions  or  laws.  The  process  must  be 
gradual  and  it  must  be  normal,  which  means  that  the 
final  basis  of  adjustment  must  be  worked  out  by  the 
immediate  parties  in  interest.  It  may  be  one  thing 
in  one  place  and  another  thing  in  another  place  — -  just 
as  the  problem  itself  differs  with  differences  of  local 
conditions  and  environment.  We  must  realise  that 


238     The  American  Race  Problem 

San  Francisco  is  not  Boston  —  that  New  Orleans  is 
not  New  York.  Thus  much  for  the  possibilities  as  to 
the  rank  and  file. 

But  what  of  the  other  class?  The  "masses"  is  at 
best  an  unsatisfactory  and  indefinite  term.  It  is  very 
far  from  embracing  even  the  Southern  Negro,  and  we 
need  not  forget  that  seven  years  ago  there  were  900,000 
members  of  the  race  living  outside  the  South.  What 
of  the  class,  mainly  urban  and  large  in  number,  who 
have  lost  the  typical  habit  and  attitude  of  the  Negro 
of  the  mass,  and  who,  more  and  more,  are  becoming 
restless,  and  chafing  under  existing  conditions?*  There 
is  an  intimate  and  very  natural  relation  between  the 
social  and  intellectual  advance  of  the  so-called  Negro 
and  the  matter  of  friction  along  social  lines./  It  is  in 
fact  only  as  we  touch  the  higher  groups  that  we  can 
appreciate  the  potential  results  of  contact  upon  a 
different  plane  from  that  common  to  the  masses  in  the 
South.  There  is  a  large  and  steadily  increasing  group 
of  men,  more  or  less  related  to  the  Negro  by  blood  and 
wholly  identified  with  him  by  American  social  usage, 
who  refuse  to  accept  quietly  the  white  man's  attitude 
toward  the  race.  I  appreciate  the  mistake  of  laying 
too  great  stress  upon  the  utterances  of  any  one  man  or 
group  of  men,  but  the  mistake  in  this  case  lies  the 
other  way.  The  American  white  man  knows  little  or 
nothing  about  the  thought  and  opinion  of  the  coloured 
men  and  women  who  to-day  largely  mould  and  direct 
Negro  public  opinion  in  this  country.  Even  the  white 
man  who  considers  himself  "a  student  of  the  race 


Race  Friction 


239 


question"  rarely  exhibits  anything  more  than  pro 
found  ignorance  of  the  Negro's  side  of  the  problem. 
He  does  not  know  what  the  other  man  is  thinking  and 
saying  on  the  subject.  This  composite  type  which 
we  poetically  call  "black,"  but  which  in  reality  is  every 
shade  from  black  to  white,  is  slowly  developing  a  con 
sciousness  of  its  own  racial  solidarity.  It  is  finding 
its  own  distinctive  voice,  and  through  its  own  books 
and  papers  and  magazines,  through  its  own  social 
organisations  —  is  at  once  giving  utterance  to  its  dis 
content  and  making  known  its  demands. 

And  with  this  dawning  consciousness  of  race  there  is 
likewise  coming  an  appreciation  of  the  limitations 
and  restrictions  which  hem  in  its  unfolding  and  develop 
ment,  j  One  of  the  best  indexes  to  the  possibilities  of 
increased  racial  friction  is  the  Negro's  own  recognition 
of  the  universality  of  the  white  man's  racial  antipathy 
toward  him.J  This  is  the  one  clear  note  above  the 
storm  of  protest  against  the  things  that  are  —  that  in 
his  highest  aspirations  everywhere  the  white  man's 
"prejudice"  blocks  the  coloured  man's  path.  And 
the  white  man  may  with  possible  profit  pause  long 
enough  to  ask  the  deeper  significance  of  the  Negro's 
finding  of  himself.  May  it  not  be  only  part  of  a  general 
awakening  of  the  darker  races  of  the  earth?  Captain 
H.  A.  Wilson,  of  the  English  army,  says  that  through 
all  Africa  there  has  penetrated  in  some  way  a  vague, 
confused  report  that  far  off  somewhere,  in  the  unknown, 
outside  world,  a  great  war  has  been  fought  between  a 
white  and  a  yellow  race,  and  won  by  the  yellow  man. 


240     The  American  Race  Problem 

And  even  before  the  Japanese-Russian  conflict,  "  Ethio- 
pianism"  and  the  cry  of  "Africa  for  the  Africans" 
had  begun  to  disturb  the  English  in  South  Africa. 
It  is  said  time  and  again  that  the  dissatisfaction  and 
unrest  in  India  are  accentuated  by  the  results  of  this 
same  war.  There  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any 
man  who  carefully  reads  American  Negro  journals 
that  their  rejoicing  over  the  Japanese  victory  sounded 
a  very  different  note  from  that  of  the  white  American. 
It  was  far  from  being  a  mere  expression  of  sympathy 
with  a  people  fighting  for  national  existence  against  a 
power  which  had  made  itself  odious  to  the  civilised 
world  by  its  treatment  of  its  subjects.  It  was,  instead, 
a  quite  clear  cry  of  exultation  over  the  defeat  of  a  white 
race  by  a  dark  one.  The  white  man  is  no  wisejr  than 
the  ostrich  if  he  refuses  to  see  the  truth  that  in  the 
possibilities  of  race  friction  the  Negro's  increasing 
consciousness  of  race  is  to  play  a  part .  scarcely  less 
important  than  the  white  man's  racial  antipathies, 
prejudices,  or  whatever  we  may  elect  to  call  them. 

In  its  final  analysis  the  sum  and  substance  of  the 
ultimate  demand  of  those  Americans  of  African  descent 
whose  mental  attainments  and  social  equipment  iden 
tify  them  much  more  closely  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
than  with  the  Negro  masses,  is  definitely  and  clearly 
stated  in  the  words  of  Dr.  DuBois:  "There  is  left  the 
last  alternative  —  the  raising  of  the  Negro  in  America 
to  full  rights  and  citizenship.  And  I  mean  by  this, 
no  half-way  measures;  I  mean  full  and  fair  equality. 
That  is,  the  chance  to  obtain  work  regardless  of  colour. 


Race  Friction  241 

to  aspire  to  position  and  preferment  on  the  basis  of 
desert  alone,  to  have  the  right  to  use  public  conveniences, 
to  enter  public  places  of  amusement  on  the  same  terms 
as  other  people,  and  to  be  received  socially  by  such 
persons  as  might  wish  to  receive  them.  These  are  not 
extravagant  demands,  and  yet  their  granting  means 
the  abolition  of  the  colour  line.  The  question  is:  Can 
American  Negroes  hope  to  attain  to  this  result?"* 

With  equal  clearness  and  precision,  and  with  full 
comprehension  of  its  larger  meaning  and  significance  and 
ultimate  possibilities,  the  American  white  man  answers 
the  question  in  the  language  of  another  eminent  Ameri 
can  sociologist,  Professor  Edward  A.  Ross,  in  contrasting 
the  attitudes  of  Anglo-Saxons  and  Latins  toward  other 
races  on  this  continent:  "The  superiority  of  a  race 
cannot  be  preserved  without  pride  of  blood  and  an 
uncompromising  attitude  toward  the  lower  races  .  .  . 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  latter  policy,  the 
net  result  is  that  North  America  from  the  Behring 
Sea  to  the  Rio  Grande  is  dedicated  to  the  highest  type 
of  civilisation;  while  for  centuries  the  rest  of  our  hemi 
sphere  will  drag  the  ball  and  chain  of  hybridism,  "f 

And  thus  the  issue  is  joined.  And  thus  also  perhaps 
we  find  an  answer  to  our  own  question,  whether  racial 
friction  in  this  country  is  increasing  and  inevitable. 


*  "The  East  and  the  West,"  January,  1904,  p.  16 
t  "The  Foundations  of  Sociology,"  1905,  p.  379. 


VII 

MR.  ROOSEVELT,  THE  SOUTH,  AND  THE  NEGRO* 

IN  GREATER  degree  than  that  of  any  other  President 
since  the  Negro  was  set  free  has  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
administration  been  the  storm  centre  of  the  modern 
American  race  problem.  It  is  probably  safe  to  say 
that  he  went  into  the  White  House  without  having 
given  a  thought  to  the  question  of  formulating  a  "Ne 
gro  policy."  It  is  equally  safe  to  say  that  he  has  not 
at  any  time  in  his  official  career  been  guilty  of  the 
childish  whim  of  deliberately  offending  any  section  of 
the  country.  Yet  before  he  had  been  in  office  many 
months  he  succeeded  in  offending  the  South  as  no  other 


*The  following  paper  is  an  attempt  to  interpret  the  true  significance  of  the 
incidents  which  led  to  the  estrangement  between  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  South 
ern  people.  These  incidents  are  treated  in  their  relation  to  the  American  race 
problem.  There  is  no  such  barren  purpose  as  that  of  stirring  dead  embers. 
It  is  not  intended  to  discuss  the  mere  facts  themselves.  The  object  is  to  endea 
vour  to  discover  the  meaning  of  the  attitudes  which  the  Negro  and  the  South 
respectively  assumed  toward  the  President,  as  determined  by  certain  executive 
actions  with  which  those  parties  were  concerned.  The  spirit  is  not  contro 
versial,  howsoever  far  the  words  may  have  inadvertently  departed  from 
their  proper  purpose.  The  incidents  are  first  stated  and  the  meaning  which 
the  South  and  the  Negro  attached  to  them  is  suggested.  The  historical  reasons 
underlying  the  attitude  of  the  South  are  traced,  and  the  logical  relation  between 
such  attitude  and  the  period  of  reconstruction  is  sought  to  be  established. 
The  psychological  force  of  suggestion  is  pointed  out.  The  real  significance  to 
the  Negro  of  one  of  the  incidents  is  shown.  Its  interpretation  is  given  as  a 
manifestation  of  a  developing  consciousness  of  race,  the  true  import  of  which 
has  been  lost  sight  of  in  preoccupation  with  the  incident  itself.  In  conclusion, 
there  is  indicated  the  historical  association  which  Mr.  Roosevelt's  "referee 
system"  possessed  for  the  Southern  people,  as  a  contributing  element  of  dis 
cord. 

242 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      243 

public  man  has  done  in  recent  years.  Before  a  year 
had  passed  he  had  adopted  a  well-defined  policy  to 
ward  the  political  aspect  of  the  race  problem.  This 
policy  was  simple  enough.  Its  one  tenet  was  that  colour 
should  not  bar  him  from  making  political  appointments. 
He  doubtless  thought  that  the  Constitution  was  a  safe 
enough  platform  for  a  President  to  stand  upon,  even 
as  regards  the  race  problem.  And  so  it  would  be,  if 
the  latter  were  something  which  had  respect  for  the  arti 
ficial  metes  and  bounds  laid  down  in  our  organic  law. 
Fortunately  or  unfortunately,  according  to  one's  point 
of  view,  it  is  beyond  the  control  of  any  legislative  act 
which  the  ingenuity  of  man  has  thus  far  been  able  to 
devise.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  attempted  application  of  his 
policy  to  the  field  of  practical  conduct,  his  general 
attitude,  the  hue  and  cry  which  his  actions  at  once 
aroused,  the  inability  of  the  South  and  the  President 
to  understand  each  other,  the  inability  of  the  North  to 
understand  the  South  and  its  attitude  toward  him, 
all  furnish  an  inviting  field  for  study  to  anyone  inter 
ested  in  the  problems  of  American  democracy. 

The  Facts  in  the  Case 

Three  incidents  marked  the  progress  of  the  contro 
versy  which  broke  upon  the  country  shortly  after 
Roosevelt's  succession  to  the  presidency.  These  were 
the  Booker  Washington  dinner,  the  appointment  of 
Crum,  and  the  closing  of  the  Indianola  post-office. 
There  were  four  parties  in  interest  —  Mr.  Roosevelt,  the 


244     The  American  Race  Problem 

Southern  press  and  people,  the  Northern  press  and 
people,  and  the  American  Negro.  The  attitude  of 
the  first  three  will  be  stated  in  general  terms.  The 
President  acted  clearly  within  his  "rights"  in  each 
case.  This  point  must  be  conceded  without  argument. 
The  dinner  episode  was  in  itself  no  more  than  a  matter 
of  White  House  routine.  It  was  more  a  business  con 
ference  than  a  social  function.* 

There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  either  party  to 
the  much  magnified  affair  regarded  it  in  any  other  light. 
Such  instances  are  of  daily  occurrence  and  are  familiar 
to  all  readers  of  Washington  papers.  They  are  an 
nounced  as  locals,  in  two  or  three  line  statements  to  the 
effect  that  "yesterday  at  luncheon,"  or  "last  night  at 
dinner,"  Mr.  Blank  "discussed  with  the  President  the 
question  of  Western  forest  reserves,"  or  something 

*  Francis  E.  Leupp  gives  the  following  authentic  account  of  the  incident: 
"I  happen  to  know  that  this  affair  was  not  of  Mr.  Washington's  seeking. 
He  had  been  sent  for  because  the  President  wished  to  consult  him  on  a  special 
subject.  Realising  that  any  needless  publicity  given  to  his  relations  with  the 
President  might  lay  him  open  to  the  suspicion  of  having  political  ends  to  serve 
and  thus  interfere  with  his  educational  work,  he  wished  to  avoid  newspaper 
mention  of  his  visit  to  the  capital  as  far  as  possible.  To  that  end  one  of  his 
friends  came  to  me  in  his  behalf  for  advice  as  to  how  he  could  get  into  and  out 
of  the  city  and  make  his  brief  call  at  the  White  House  without  meeting  any 
reporters.  I  suggested  a  plan  which  worked  admirably  as  far  as  it  went,  but 
failed  at  its  final  stage  because  we  could  not  very  well  make  the  President  a 
party  to  it.  Mr.  Washington  escaped  the  dreaded  interviewers,  but  fell  a 
victim  to  the  routine  of  the  executive  mansion.  It  was  a  custom,  devised  for 
the  convenience  of  the  local  press,  to  furnish  to  the  doorkeepers  the  names  of  all 
guests  received  by  the  President  out  of  office  hours,  and  the  doorkeepers  com 
municated  this  list  to  any  reporter  who  called  in  the  evening.  The  uniform 
practice  was  followed  in  this  instance,  and  the  next  morning's  Washington 
Post  contained  a  two-line  paragraph,  in  an  obscure  place  at  the  bottom  of  an 
inside  page:  'Booker  T.  Washington,  of  Tuskegee,  Ala.,  dined  with  the  Presi 
dent  last  evening.'  These  facts  appear  here  for  the  first  time  in  print,  because 
I  feel  that  their  correct  statement  is  only  just  to  both  parties  to  the  dinner  epi 
sode.  It  was  highly  creditable  to  Mr.  Washington  that  he  did  nothing  to  pro 
mote,  but  everything  in  his  power  to  prevent,  the  exploitation  of  the  honour 
shown  him." — "The  Man  Roosevelt,"  Francis  E.  Leupp,  pp.  218-219. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     245 

else  equally  lifeless.  On  the  day  in  question  the  usual 
perfunctory  announcement  was  charged  with  dyna 
mite,  through  the  casual  insertion  of  the  name  of  Booker 
T.  Washington.* 

Within  forty-eight  hours  the  President  was  being 
denounced  for  having  crossed  the  "social  equality" 
dead-line,  through  breaking  bread  with  a  Negro.  Sur 
prise  was  probably  the  first  emotion  excited  in  the  mind 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt  by  the  storm  which  burst  upon  him 
from  the  South.  But  for  once  he  was  silent.  There 
was  no  official  "announcement"  from  the  White  House. 
Not  until  three  years  later  did  he  state  his  position, 
and  then  it  was  as  an  abstract,  unrelated  proposition. 
This  was  the  declaration,  in  his  New  York  Lincoln 
Day  race  problem  address,  that  social  association  be 
tween  the  races  was  a  matter  of  purely  private  and 
personal  interest  between  the  parties  concerned. 

The  attitude  of  the  South  was  one  of  general  disap 
proval.  In  some  instances  the  disapprobation  was 
couched  in  violent  and  abusive  terms.  In  many  the  tone 
was  one  of  dignified  resentment.  By  some  papers  the 
affair  was  dismissed  as  not  worth  noticing.  The  one 


*  "Booker  T.  Washington,  of  Tuskegee,  Alabama,  dined  with  the  President 
last  evening." — Washington  Post,  Oct.  17,  1901,  p.  3,  col.  8,  bottom  of  page. 
"Prof.  Booker  T.  Washington  was  in  the  city  yesterday,  and  dined  with  the 
President  last  night.  While  here  he  was  the  guest  of  Mr.  Whitefield  McKinlay. " 
— Washington  Star,  Oct,  17,  1901,  p.  i,  col.  6.  The  item  furnished  by  wire  to 
the  Southern  press  was  in  the  main  similar  to  the  following:  "Washington, 
Oct.  1 6.  Booker  T.  Washington,  principal  of  the  Negro  school  at  Tuskegee, 
Ala.,  dined  with  the  president  this  evening.  It  was  largely  at  Washington's 
suggestion  that  ex-Governor  Jones  of  Alabama  was  appointed  a  judge  on 
the  Federal  bench  in  that  State.  It  is  understood  that  Washington  will  make 
a  number  of  recommendations  for  appointments  in  the  South,  but  just  what 
they  are  cannot  be  learned  yet.  He  seems  to  be  very  influential  with  the 
administration." — Memphis  Commercial  Appeal,  Oct.  17,  1901, 


246     The  American  Race  Problem 

universal  note  was  that  the  incident  would  have  a  harm 
ful  effect  on  the  relations  between  the  races.* 

The  attitude  of  the  Northern  press  was  generally  an 
unqualified  defence  of  the  President,  with  an  occasional 
questioning  of  the  wisdom  of  his  act.  Of  course  the 
inevitable  newspaper  controversy  at  once  ensued  — • 
with  the  usual  result  of  adding  nothing  either  to  sectional 
good  feeling  or  to  sectional  enlightenment. 

Before  these  echoes  had  died  away  the  other  two 
incidents  occurred.  When  Dr.  Crum  was  appointed 
to  the  collectorship  of  the  Port  of  Charleston  the  Presi- 
ident  did  not  hesitate  to  define  his  position.  He  took 
and  maintained  the  ground  that  unless  some  valid 
reason,  other  than  colour,  could  be  urged  against  the 
appointment  it  would  stand.  It  was  in  this  connec 
tion  that  he  issued  his  "door  of  hope"  declaration,  in 
an  open  letter  to  a  Charleston  man.  The  nomination 
was  finally  confirmed,  and  Crum  is  still  in  office.  The 
attitude  of  Southern  papers  was  no  less  positive,  though 


*  The  following  extracts  are  fairly  illustrative  of  the  social  emphasis  placed 
upon  the  incident  by  a  number  of  Southern  papers:  "That  was  a  deliberate  act, 
taken  under  no  alleged  pressure  o  necessity,  as  in  the  Albany  case,  and  may 
be  taken  as  outlining  his  policy  toward  the  Negro  as  a  factor  in  Washington 
society.  .  .  .  With  our  long-matured  views  on  the  subject  of  social  inter 
course  between  blacks  and  whites,  the  least  we  can  say  now  is  that  we  deplore 
the  President's  taste,  and  we  distrust  his  wisdom." — Richmond  Dispatch,  Oct. 
18,  1901.  "There  is  not  the  least  reason,  however,  to  fear  that  his  (Washington's) 
position  in  the  South  will  be  improved  on  this  account.  Call  it  what  you  please, 
call  it  prejudice,  or  race  hatred,  or  significance,  or  what  not,  the  people  of  the 
South  have  to  deal  with  the  coloured  question  as  it  is,  and  as  it  affects  their 
civilization,  and  they  may  be  depended  upon  to  deal  with  it  as  it  touches 
them  and  their  interests.  We  do  not  know,  of  course,  what  we  should  have  done 
if  we  had  been  in  his  place,  but,  knowing  the  conditions  as  they  are,  Washington 
might  have  protected  the  President  from  much  unpleasant  criticism,  and  himself 
and  his  people  from  possible  injury,  by  respectfully  declining  the  President's 
invitation." — News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  Oct.  21,  1901.  See  Literary 
Digest,  Oct.  26,  1901,  pp.  486-487  for  resum6  of  newspaper  comment. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     247 

in  the  main  much  more  conservative  in  tone,  in 
regard  to  this  appointment  than  in  reference  to  the 
dinner  episode.  The  extreme  Northern  view  found 
expression  in  threats  of  a  reduction  of  Southern 
representation  in  retaliation  for  continued  Southern 
opposition  to  a  political  "square  deal"  for  the  Negro. 
Some  papers  even  suggested  the  possibility  of  another 
force  bill.  The  position  of  the  more  conservative,  or  lib 
eral,  section  of  opinion  was  that  of  attempting  to  show 
the  folly  and  injustice  of  attacking  Roosevelt,  by  an  argu 
ment  based  upon  a  comparison  of  the  number  of  Negro 
appointments  during  his  and  McKinley 's  administrations. 
Almost  simultaneously  with  the  Crum  appointment 
came  the  closing  of  the  Indianola  post-office.  The 
Negro  postmistress  was  a  Harrison  and  McKinley 
appointee,  and  had  for  some  years  held  office  under 
both  administrations.  Her  resignation  was  requested 
by  a  so-called  mass-meeting.  It  was  tendered,  but  its 
acceptance  was  refused  by  the  department.  'The  post 
mistress  declined  to  serve  and  the  office  was  closed. 
Mail  for  Indianola  was  ordered  sent  to  Greenville,  twenty- 
five  miles  distant,  though  there  were  other  offices  nearer. 
Thus  apparent  spite  was  added  to  useless  punishment.* 


*  Indianola  is  a  town  of  2,000  or  2,500  people.  It  is  a  place  of  large  local 
business  importance.  It  has  banks,  oil  mills,  compress,  a  $20,000  public  school 
building  and  a  $40,000  court  house.  It  is  the  capital  town  of  Sunflower  County 
and  the  seat  of  circuit  and  chancery  courts.  In  its  character  as  the  seat  of  a 
county  government  it  is  guaranteed  postal  facilities  by  Federal  statute.  The 
evasion  of  the  law  was  accomplished  by  resorting  to  a  rather  petty  subterfuge. 
The  position  was  taken  that  the  post-office  had  not  been  "abolished,"  but 
merely  temporarily  "closed."  The  act  was  clearly  punitive  in  intent.  If 
there  was  anything  unlawful  in  the  conduct  of  those  who  asked  the  resignation, 
the  United  States  Court  could  easily  have  been  resorted  to.  It  was  in  charge 
of  Republican  officials,  some  of  them  Mr.  Roosevelt's  own  appointees. 


248      The  American  Race  Problem 

Mr.  Roosevelt  again  became  silent.  He  gave  out 
no  statement  in  regard  to  the  case.  Southern  papers 
denounced  him  as  guilty  of  a  "high-handed  outrage." 
Northern  papers  denounced  the  white  people  of  Indian- 
ola  for  having  "intimidated  and  bullied"  the  post 
mistress  into  resigning.  With  practical  unanimity 
they  upheld  the  President's  course,  and  saw  in  the 
deprivation  of  the  entire  town  of  postal  facilities,  on 
account  of  the  alleged  "lawless  conduct"  of  a  few  of  its 
people,  only  an  act  of  righteous  justice.  The  most 
significant  feature  of  this  affair,  it  may  be  remarked 
in  passing,  is  the  fact  that  the  Indianola  post-office  is 
open  to-day,  with  a  white  postmaster,  while  the  former 
postmistress  and  her  husband  are  still  residents  of  the 
town,  and  enjoy  the  confidence  and  regard  of  its  white 
people. 

Query:  Why  could  not  the  powers  that  be  have  recog 
nised  the  inevitable  a  few  months  earlier,  and  effected 
the  final  harmonious  adjustment  without  the  interven 
ing  process  of  Sturm  und  Drang.  However,  if  things 
were  always  handled  that  way  we  would  be  approaching 
dangerously  near  a  dissolution,  if  not  a  solution,  of  the 
race  problem. 

The  attitude  of  the  fourth  party,  the  Negro  factor, 
will  be  considered  later. 

If  these  incidents  were  mere  tempests  in  a  teapot, 
as  was  repeatedly  declared  by  Northern  papers,  they 
would  not  merit  thoughtful  consideration.  If  the 
storm  which  they  raised  was  a  mere  newspaper  squall 
they  might  be  dismissed  as  not  worth  an  effort  at  analy- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro 


249 


sis  of  their  significance.  But  they  had  a  deeper  meaning. 
In  a  letter  to  the  writer  in  March,  1903,  the  editor  of 
one  of  the  most  ably  conducted  magazines  in  the  North 
expressed  the  opinion  that  "the  present  irritation  over 
Negro  appointees  is  incidental  and  ephemeral."  The 
irritation  may  have  been  ephemeral.  But  it  is  true 
of  many  inherently  trivial  incidents  that  they  leave 
behind  them  a  train  of  consequences  whose  import  is 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  irritating  cause.  The  bur 
dens  of  an  administrative  official  are  rendered  doubly 
difficult  in  any  country  where  to  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  government  are  added  the  necessity  of  dealing  with 
two  or  more  diverse  racial  elements.  The  capacity 
of  such  an  official  may  be  measured  by  his  ability  to 
weigh  and  determine  in  advance  the  reasonably  probable 
consequences  of  acts  in  themselves  unimportant,  and 
then  to  chart  a  proper  course  across  the  reefs  and  shoals 
of  racial  complications.  It  is  with  the  consequences 
and  significance  of  the  incidents  before  us,  rather  than 
with  the  incidents  themselves,  that  we  are  here  con 
cerned. 

The  Reconstruction  Background 

In  many  of  its  most  perplexing  phenomena  the 
American  race  problem  is  largely  a  matter  of  sentiment 
and  psychology.  It  exhibits  few  manifestations  which 
a  just  apprehension  of  the  very  essentials  of  the  problem, 
the  factors  of  race,  might  not  have  discounted  in  ad 
vance.  The  chief  difficulty  has  been  that  the  treat 
ment  of  the  modern  American  problem  has  been  char- 


250     The  American  Race  Problem 

acterised  throughout  by  an  incomprehensible  disregard 
of  these  essentials.  Its  history  since  1865  is  an  almost 
unbroken  succession  of  policies  and  conduct  based 
upon  the  assumed  non-existence  of  any  such  funda 
mental  complicating  factor.  The  entire  question  has 
from  the  very  beginning  been  made  the  plaything  of 
partisan  politics,  rather  than  the  grave  concern  of  non- 
partisan  statesmanship.  If  England  had  adopted  to 
ward  her  numerous  and  widely  scattered  racial  prob 
lems  the  peculiarly  American  attitude,  her  colonial 
empire  would  have  been  a  miserable  failure,  instead  of  a 
bulwark  to  the  Mother  Country.  If  we  had  attempted 
to  apply  to  the  racial  problems  which  have  con 
fronted  us  in  the  Philippines  the  same  policy  which 
we  apply  to  our  race  problem  at  home,  we  would  have 
made  of  ourselves  a  laughing-stock  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  charge  that  the  South  attempts 
to  lay  too  much  responsibility  for  existing  conditions 
upon  the  blunders  of  reconstruction.  Theories  of 
incidence  are  often  difficult  to  apply,  whether  in  econo 
mics  or  politics.  The  ultimate  placing  of  responsibility 
is  not  always  an  easy  problem  to  solve.  Cause  and 
effect  are  not  always  readily  associated.  The  correla 
tion  is  sometimes  difficult  to  establish  or  apprehend. 
It  has  occasionally  been  declared  in  reply  to  this  posi 
tion  that  the  Southern  people  themselves  were  respons 
ible  for  reconstruction,  and  are  responsible  for  present 
conditions,  because  "they  hardened  their  hearts  and 
would  not  let  their  people  go."  Causal  association 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     251 

between  the  South 's  failure  to  voluntarily  adopt  some 
plan  of  emancipation,  and  the  problems  which  to-day 
confront  her  people,  cannot  be  established.  The  two 
propositions  are  too  remotely  removed.  This  is  too 
great  a  straining  of  the  post  hoc,  ergo  propter  hoc  to  be 
practically  tenable  ground.  We  would  as  well  seek  to 
locate  the  trouble  with  those  responsible  for  the  first 
importation  of  African  slaves  in  1619.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  connection  between  reconstruction  policies 
and  incidents  and  existing  race  problem  phenomena 
is  that  of  direct  and  historical  sequence. 

Booker  T.  Washington  discloses  the  connecting  link 
in  a  single  sentence.  With  the  judgment  which  has 
always  marked  his  consideration  of  policies  affecting 
his  people,  he  declares  that  relations  of  kindliness  and 
friendship  between  the  Southern  white  man  and  the 
Negro  afford  the  latter  "a  protection  and  guarantee 
of  his  rights  that  will  be  more  potent  and  more  lasting 
than  any  our  Federal  Congress  or  any  outside  power 
can  confer."*  The  complement  of  this  proposition  is 
that  whatever  tends  to  break  down  such  amicable 
relations  also  necessarily  tends  to  erect,  and  leave  in 
their  place,  relations  of  a  less  kindly,  if  not  positively 
hostile,  nature.  The  essence  of  the  race  problem  is 
that  of  the  peaceful  common  occupancy  of  the  same 
territory  by  two  widely  differing  people.  Whatever 
builds  up  amicable  relations  between  these  tenants 
in  common  tends  to  minimise  the  problem  of  their 
tenancy.  Whatever  tends  to  create  friction  between 

*  "The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  216. 


252     The  American  Race  Problem 

them  renders  their  problem  more  acute.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  show  what  effect  our  particular  method 
of  inaugurating  the  novel  relations  of  freedom  upon  the 
old  relations  of  slavery  had  upon  the  new  relations 
themselves,  to  determine  the  measure  of  responsibility 
of  the  system  for  its  results.  If  it  is  shown  that  the 
system  and  policies  of  reconstruction  tended  to  destroy 
those  relations  which  Mr.  Washington  now  regards 
as  the  chief  guarantee  of  the  right  of  his  people,  and 
that  the  replacing  of  these  natural  relations  by  the 
purely  artificial  guarantees  of  legislation  tended  to 
create  racial  friction,  then  the  responsibility  of  the 
system  for  certain  of  its  consequences  would  seem  to  be 
established. 

To  take  the  ground  that  all  the  complicated  phases 
of  the  modern  problem  of  race  relations  are  attributable 
to  Reconstruction,  or  to  any  other  one  line  of  policy, 
anywhere  or  at  any  time,  would  be  to  assume  a  wholly 
untenable  position.  The  simpler  the  form  of  relation 
between  two  different  races  the  simpler  will  be  the 
problems  between  the  two;  the  more  complex  the  re 
lation  the  more  complex  its  problems.  The  simplest 
relation  that  could  exist  between  the  white  and  Negro 
races,  in  the  mass,  was  that  of  the  physical  control  of 
one  by  the  other.  The  most  complex  relations  that 
can  exist  between  the  two,  or  between  any  racial  groups, 
are  those  predicated  upon  a  condition  of  actual  or  tech 
nical  equality.  And  the  complications  to  which  this 
relation  gives  rise  will  be  difficult  and  severe  in  propor 
tion  to  the  degree  of  artificiality  which  characterises 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     253 

the  equality  sought  to  be  established.  The  greater  the 
natural  differences  in  the  way,  the  more  complicated 
and  serious  will  be  the  problems  incident  to  the  artifi 
cially  created  relations.  The  mere  grant  of  immediate 
freedom  to  a  large  mass  of  Negro  slaves  would  inevitably 
have  produced  its  own  racial  problems.  Every  step 
taken  toward  the  removal  of  the  further  barriers  be 
tween  white  and  black  multiplied  such  problems  and 
created  new  ones.  The  only  escape  from  a  cataclysm 
lay  in  allowing  sufficient  time  to  elapse  between  the 
removal  of  one  barrier  after  another  for  the  races  to 
adjust  their  relations  to  the  change  along  normal  lines. 
But  this  would  not  have  been  "Reconstruction." 
That  was  a  process  the  logical  dogma  of  which  was  the 
proposition  that  nature  has  erected  no  barrier  to  racial 
equality  which  legislation  cannot  remove. 

The  only  defence  which  can  be  attempted  of  the 
policy  of  giving  the  Negro  the  ballot  in  1867,  and  of 
confirming  the  grant  in  1870,  is  that  it  was  necessary  to 
enable  him  to  "protect"  himself.  The  very  thought 
suggests  the  idea  of  a  conflict  between  former  master 
and  slave.  Apparently  it  has  been  impossible  for  poli 
ticians  and  publicists  to  comprehend  the  existence  of 
the  relation  of  master  and  slave  without  a  resulting 
state  of  inconceivable  hostility  between  the  individuals 
thus  associated.  We  are  prone  to  interpret  the  things 
which  affect  other  people  in  terms  of  our  own  conscious 
ness.  This  is  the  basic  error  of  many  people  who  dis 
cuss  the  problems  before  us.  They  would  be  miser 
able  and  unutterably  wretched  in  a  state  of  "bondage," 


254     The  American  Race  Problem 

ergo,  the  Negro  was  miserable  and  wretched.  The 
mistaken  policy  of  Reconstruction  was  but  the  practical 
application  of  a  mistaken  theory  of  race  relations  under 
slavery.*  Many  thoughtful  men  were  amazed  that 
the  Negroes  did  not  massacre  their  masters  at  the  first 
opportunity.  There  is  no  escape  from  the  candid 
conclusion  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  prepared  himself  to 
accept  a  "servile  insurrection"  as  an  entirely  possible 
result  of  his  calling  Negro  slaves  to  freedom  and  to 
arms.  That  none  of  these  things  occurred  has  been 
ascribed  to  the  "forgiving  and  benignant  gentleness" 
of  the  Negro.  It  is  only  occasionally  that  someone 
sees  deeply  enough  to  realise  the  whole  truth. 

We  need  not  take  too  literally  the  pleasing  romances 
which  deal  with  Southern  ante  bellum  life,  in  order 
to  realise  the  fact  that  there  was  much  in  the  relations 
between  the  races  under  the  old  regime  which  was, 
and  is,  incomprehensible  to  the  mind  of  anyone  to  whom 
slavery  was  merely  the  sum  of  all  villainies.  On  the 
one  hand  we  have  balls  and  chains,  auction  blocks  and 
weeping  children,  bloodhounds  and  swamps,  the  slave 
driver  and  the  lash  —  all  the  accessories  and  parapher 
nalia  necessary  to  equip  a  Southern  plantation  in  a 
New  England  novel.  On  the  other,  we  have  the  big 
house  and  its  gentle  mistress,  the  kind  and  indulgent 
master,  the  black  mammy,  the  enduring  friendship 
between  the  races,  the  Christmas  frolics,  and  the  various 
other  things  which  live  in  the  picture  painted  upon 

*  I  am  here  eliminating  from  consideration  all  the  baser  motives  of  that 
policy,  and  am  reviewing  only  that  which  honestly,  even  though  mistakenly, 
sought  the  welfare  of  the  Negro. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     255 

another  canvas.  We  need  not  be  deceived  on  either 
side.  The  truth  will  usually  be  found  between  any 
two  given  extremes. 

Slavery  was  neither  all  the  one  nor  all  the  other. 
It  was  essentially  a  human  institution,  and  as  such  was 
no  better  and  no  worse  than  the  individuals  with  whose 
lives  it  was  inseparably  associated.  It  was  mild  or 
harsh  as  the  individual  was  mild  or  harsh.  The  history 
of  its  relations  has  not  been  written,  and  probably  will 
not  be  by  this  generation.  By  whomsoever  the  task 
may  be  assumed,  two  people  will  have  to  collaborate 
in  the  work  —  a  Southern  Negro  and  a  Southern  white 
man.  And  the  record  will  miss  an  essential  truth  if 
it  fail  to  recognise  the  great  potential  force  for  usefulness 
in  adjusting  succeeding  relations  which  was  bound  up 
in  the  ties  which  existed  between  the  higher  type  of 
master  and  the  higher  type  of  slave.  We  are  apt  to 
miss  this  truth,  through  dwelling  on  the  limited  number 
of  the  higher  domestic  class  as  compared  with  the 
whole.  We  fail  to  realise  that  it  was  this  higher  class, 
in  the  main  mulatto  types,  who  in  such  large  measure 
constituted  the  "Negro"  leaders  of  the  Reconstruction 
era.  It  was  through  them  that  a  great  beneficent 
force  might  have  been  exerted  upon  the  mass,  just  as 
it  was  through  them  that  this  force  was  in  fact  too 
largely  exerted  for  evil.  Such  men  as  Hampton,  Lamar, 
Hill,  and  Gordon  on  the  one  side,  and  Revels,  Bruce,  and 
many  more  on  the  other,  both  bond  and  free,  might 
not  have  been  able  entirely  to  control  their  respective 
constituencies.  It  is  morally  certain,  however,  that 


256     The  American  Race  Problem 

acting  together,  as  under  normally  developed  condi 
tions  they  would  have  acted,  they  could  and  would  have 
brought  to  bear  a  powerful  pressure  for  good.  That 
the  normal  relations  between  these  men  were  all  too 
nearly  destroyed  is  one  thing  for  which  Reconstruction 
was  immediately  responsible.  We  have  abundant 
testimony  as  to  what  in  very  large  degree  such  relations 
were  under  slavery,  and  much  from  people  of  colour 
themselves.  As  barely  suggestive  only,  we  give  two  or 
three  expressions  from  men  who  certainly  cannot  be 
charged  with  partiality  toward  the  institution  itself: 

Dr.  DuBois  says:  "Nothing  has  come  to  replace 
that  finer  sympathy  and  love  between  some  masters 
and  house  servants,  which  the  radical  and  more  un 
compromising  drawing  of  the  colour  line  in  recent  years 
has  caused  almost  completely  to  disappear."* 

With  a  touch  of  genuine  pathos  Professor  Councill 
says:  "The  Negro  must  just  take  his  chances.  That 
is  all.  When  the  old,  gray-haired  veterans  who  fol 
lowed  General  Lee's  tattered  banners  to  Appomattox 
shall  have  passed  away,  the  Negro's  best  friends  will 
have  gone;  for  the  Negro  got  more  out  of  slavery  than 
they  did.  '  Now  there  arose  up  a  new  King  over  Egypt, 
which  knew  not  Joseph. '"f 

Mr.  John  Henry  Smyth,  of  Virginia,  ex-minister  to 
Liberia  says:  "To  my  mind  but  one  merit  can  be 
claimed  for  the  old  system  of  enslavement  —  a  discipline 
as  to  labour  which  produced  the  best  results  to  the 


*  "Annals  of  the  American  Academy,"  July,  1901,  Vol.  18,  No.  i,  p.  138, 
t  "The  Future  of  the  Negro,"  Forum,  July,  1899,  p.  575. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro 


257 


master  class  and  made  the  slave  orderly  and  systematic 
in  the  performance  of  his  tasks.  Though  smarting, 
even  now,  under  the  resultant  influences  of  a  destroyed 
system,  we  can  afford  to  do  justice  to  the  good  men 
and  women  of  the  white  race  who  constituted  a  part 
of  the  system.  Slavery  as  it  has  been  known  in  the 
outside  world,  is  not  slavery  as  it  was  in  the  genteel 
and  pious  homes  and  households  of  the  South.  Here 
the  'people'  were  treated  almost  as  members  of  the 
family,  'uncles'  and  'aunts'  and  'mammies'  and  play 
mates.  They  were  necessary  supplements,  sharers 
of  all  great  occasions  of  joy  or  sorrow,  of  feasts  and 
sufferings.  And  the  tenderest  and  most  watchful  care 
was  bestowed  upon  them.  Consideration  for  the  ser 
vants  was  the  test  of  the  'quality.'  Mutual  influences 
went  to  make  as  pure,  high  and  beautiful  a  civilisa 
tion  as  the  system  was  capable  of.  And  no  philan 
thropist  on  earth  has  ever  had  a  deeper  horror  for  the 
evils  that  have  been  represented  as  slavery  in  the  South 
than  many  of  the  'quality.'  Nor  anywhere  was  the 
wise  abolition  of  slavery  more  earnestly  studied  and 
desired  than  by  the  good  people  of  the  Southern  states."* 
In  an  appreciation  of  "The  Services  of  Dunbar," 
Mr.  George  Davis  Jenifer  says:  "In  those  days  when 
master  and  man  were  united  in  the  bonds  of  slavery, 
there  was  abundant  intercourse  between  the  races  and 
much  of  trustfulness  and  of  affection.  The  black  man's 
hand  received  the  new  born  master;  the  black  man's 


*  "Negro  Criminality,"  John  Henry  Smyth,  Southern  Workman,  Nov..  "goo, 
pp.  628,  629. 


258     The  American  Race  Problem 

feet  were  patient  to  stay  beside  the  faltering  baby  steps 
of  his  charge  and  swift  to  the  rescue  when  danger 
threatened;  the  black  man  chastened  the  unruly  spirit 
of  the  child  that  it  might  grow  strong  and  comely  in 
character  as  a  gentleman's  spirit  should;  trembling 
with  eagerness  and  affection,  black  hands  clad  the 
master  for  his  marriage  and  when  the  white  man's 
hour  was  come,  black  hands,  faithful  to  the  last,  gently 
closed  his  eyes  in  death.  In  spite  of  slavery,  the  people 
of  the  South  recognised  a  common  humanity.  .  .  . 
If  habit  tended  to  assuage  the  poignancy  of  this  after 
math  of  war,  and  to  restore  the  old  affability  between 
the  races,  time  interfered;  for  the  men  of  the  old 
regime,  both  black  and  white,  who  had  known  and 
loved  each  other  well,  fast  went  the  way  of  all  flesh 
and  new  generations  arose.  .  .  .  Unto  these,  who 
should  be  brethren,  comes  Dunbar  singing  of  the  Negro, 
not  as  a  beast,  not  as  a  fiend,  but  as  a  gentle,  simple- 
hearted  man.  And  the  Southern  white  man  remembers 
again  the  traditional  kindliness  between  his  fathers 
and  the  fathers  of  his  black  neighbour;  while  the 
Northerner,  perplexed  to  find  a  refutation  of  his  theo 
ries,  is  disposed  to  be  more  generous.  Possibly,  then, 
when  the  future  has  witnessed  a  complete  revival  of 
that  friendship  between  the  races,  for  lack  of  which  our 
common  country  suffers  to-day,  men  may  see  fit  to 
raise  in  our  national  capital  a  monument  to  the  black 
poet,  whose  songs  made  two  angry  peoples  mindful  of 
their  common  brotherhood."* 


*  Voice  of  the  Negro,  June,  1906,  pp.  408,  409. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     259 

And  comes  also  a  discovery  in  the  columns  of  the 
paper  which  probably  more  than  any  other  in  America 
still  talks  of  the  "Southern  slave  driving  spirit,"  when 
it  would  typify  the  attitude  of  the  Southern  white  man 
toward  modern  racial  conditions.  A  special  corre 
spondent  tells  this  paper  of  a  favourable  opinion  of  the 
Negro  which  he  has  found  in  the  South:  "This  opin 
ion,"  he  says,  "is  confined,  of  course,  to  the  better  ele 
ment  of  whites — mostly,  one  is  bound  to  add,  to  the 
descendants  of  slave-owners."* 

Of  all  the  miserable  heritage  of  Reconstruction, 
probably  the  most  harmful,  all  things  considered,  was 
the  bequest  to  this  generation  of  the  foundation  and 
beginning  of  a  peculiarly  uncompromising,  indiscrim- 
inating  colour  line,  one  such  as  was  unknown  in  older 
days.f  There  is  no  other  element  in  the  present  situa 
tion  so  pregnant  with  hurtful  possibilities,  no  factor 
the  inexorable  operations  of  which  are  so  difficult  to 
escape.  It  is  hard  for  a  Southern  man  fully  to  under 
stand  the  attitude  of  mind  which  persistently  holds  the 
belief  that  such  relations  as  we  have  just  suggested 
did  not  exist  under  slavery,  or  at  best  were  rare  and 
curious  phenomena.  That  this  was  a  fundamental 
tenet  with  thousands  of  honest  and  intelligent  people 
is  not  a  matter  of  debate.  It  is  testified  to  by  innumer- 


*  "Traveller, "  in  New  York  Evening  Post,  Jan.  29,  1907,  p.  7.  col.  4. 

t  The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  explain  certain  phases  of  conditions  in  which 
all  of  us,  white  and  Negro,  are  more  or  less  concerned.  If  in  the  pursuit  of 
this  object  the  writer  seems  occasionally  to  go  somewhat  far  afield,  it  is  only 
that  he  may  weave  into  the  narrative  some  more  or  less  related  thread.  So 
here,  he  trusts  he  may  be  pardoned  for  following  this  digression  one  step  further 
along  the  line  of  the  historic  background  of  modern  relations. 


260     The  American  Race  Problem 

able  specific  declarations,  by  countless  acts,  by  a  policy 
too  definitely  based  upon  the  theory  to  admit  of  doubt 
as  to  its  controlling  force.  There  was  also  always 
in  evidence  the  corollary  to  this  idea,  a  proposition 
equally  as  logical  in  its  ignorance  of  fact.  This  was  that, 
conversely,  there  must  be,  from  the  very  nature  and 
constitution  of  the  Southern  institution,  a  bond  of 
unity  and  sympathy  between  the  "  oppressed  Negro 
slave"  and  the  "oppressed  non  slave-holding  white 
man."  To  the  Northern  view  they  were  the  sharers  of 
a  common  fate,  and,  upon  the  logic  of  well  reasoned 
human  conduct,  they  could  be  counted  upon  to  make 
a  common  cause  against  their  common  oppressor. 
The  great  war  governor  of  Massachusetts  tells  his 
people  in  1865  to  "remember  that  the  poor  oppressed 
democracy  of  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas  are  their  breth 
ren."  He  warns  against  letting  "sentimental  politics 
surrender  either  them,  or  the  black  man,  with  whom 
they  have  shared  the  voiceless  woe  of  his  servitude.  .  . 
to  the  possibilities  of  any  reactionary  theory."* 

Governor  Andrew  almost  completely  reversed  his 
own  attitude  toward  Reconstruction,  but  the  logic 
of  his  counsel  lived.  Though  he  would  have  had  it 
otherwise,  the  policy  of  that  period  was  not  addressed 
to  the  former  slave  owner,  and  it  met  with  no  response 
from  those  who  were  said  to  have  "shared  the  voice 
less  woe"  of  the  former  slave.  By  no  people  in  the 
South  was  the  equalising  programme  of  Congress  more 


*  Governor  John  A.  Andrew's  address  to   Massachusetts  Legislature,  Jan. 
,  1865,  Massachusetts  Senate  Documents,  i,  pp.  96,  97, 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     261 

bitterly  resented  and  opposed.  One  inevitable  result 
of  that  programme  was  to  estrange  from  the  Negro 
those  men  the  habit  of  whose  lives  was  that  of  personal 
kindliness  to  the  race.  There  was  created  for  the  first 
time  a  partial  identity  of  abstract  attitude  toward  the 
Negro  between  the  slave-holder  and  those  whom  the 
North  vainly  imagined  were  the  only  logical  friends  of 
the  slave.  But  one  division  was  permitted  by  the 
policy  which  allied  the  Negro  with  his  new  found  North 
ern  friends  and  taught  him  to  regard  his  master  as  his 
enemy.  Upon  one  side  of  this  dividing  line  were  the 
Negro  and  the  carpetbagger;  upon  the  other  were  the 
white  people  of  the  South,  save  the  scalawag,  without 
regard  to  previous  party  affiliation  or  other  association, 
without  question  as  to  natural  identity  of  interests 
or  normal  community  of  thought.  The  odium  thus 
attached  to  political  association  between  whites  and 
blacks  not  only  perpetuated  itself  in  the  popular  mind, 
but  communicated  its  taint  to  all  other  forms  of  public 
association  as  well.  The  community  of  interest  be 
tween  master  and  slave  was  destroyed,  and  hostility 
was  the  bitter  fruit  of  the  attempt  to  create  a  hope 
less  and  senseless  "equality"  between  the  two. 

But  the  old  relations  were  too  strong  to  be  wholly 
broken  down  by  even  the  iron  policy  of  Reconstruction. 
To  this  day  there  yet  survives  more  of  ante  bellum 
racial  kindliness  than  the  outside  world,  with  its  ignor 
ant  wisdom,  is  able  to  comprehend.  But  what  re 
mained  was  peculiarly  personal.  In  all  public  affairs, 
wherever  there  was  an  open  alignment  of  men,  white 


262     The  American  Race  Problem 

men  stood  by  white  men,  and  the  Negro  stood  by  the 
stranger  and  the  renegade.  All  public  support  of  the 
Negro  became  measurably  identified  with  the  odium 
of  this  political  association,  and  the  Negro  suffers  the 
consequences.  In  any  matter  which  becomes  a  question 
of  race,  in  any  matter  wherein  the  white  man  is  bound 
by  public  opinion  to  openly  espouse  one  side  or  the 
other,  as  between  that  which  is  historically  and  senti 
mentally  identified  with  the  cause  of  his  own  people, 
and  that  which  is  identified  with  those  who  were  their 
enemies  in  peace,  there  is  little  doubt  as  to  where  the 
decision  will  lie.  From  the  warning  of  Councill  we 
may  read  that  the  Negro  in  large  part  has  himself  to 
blame  —  himself  and  those  who  were  the  real  creators 
of  the  Southern  colour  line. 

The  man  who  does  not  know,  may  catch  some  faint 
hint  of  the  significance  of  this  line  as  the  coloured 
man  sees  it,  if  he  will  listen  to  Dr.  DuBois.  He 
says:  "It  is  usually  true  that  the  very  represen 
tatives  of  the  two  races  who  for  mutual  benefit  and 
the  welfare  of  the  land  ought  to  be  in  complete 
understanding  and  sympathy  are  so  far  strangers 
that  one  side  thinks  that  all  whites  are  narrow  and 
prejudiced  and  the  other  thinks  educated  Negroes 
dangerous  and  insolent.  Moreover,  in  a  land  where 
the  tyranny  of  public  opinion  and  the  intolerence  of 
criticism  is  for  obvious  historical  reasons  so  strong  as 
in  the  South,  such  a  situation  is  extremely  difficult 
to  correct.  The  white  man  as  well  as  the  Negro  is 
bound  and  tied  by  the  colour  line,  and  many  a  scheme 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     263 

of  friendliness  and  philanthropy,  of  broad-minded 
sympathy,  and  generous  fellowship  between  the  two 
has  dropped  still-born  because  some  busybody 
has  forced  the  colour  question  to  the  front  and  brought 
the  tremendous  force  of  unwritten  law  against  the 
innovators."* 

As  I  look  back  over  the  events  which  followed  the 
Civil  War,  and  think  of  the  sundered  race  relations  of 
the  period  which  preceded  it,  I  feel  as  a  supreme  con 
viction  that  if  any  one  of  the  Southern  states  had  been 
a  far  off  island  in  the  sea,  it  would  have  known  no  such 
problems  as  were  forced  upon  it  from  without;  but 
that  the  best  in  its  life,  both  white  and  black, 
would  have  given  the  world  such  an  example  of  the 
possibilities  of  racial  cooperation  along  normal  lines 
as  it  has  not  the  benefit  of  to-day  in  all  its  wide 
experience. 

For  a  student  of  race  relations,  seeking  light  upon 
the  results  of  the  artificial  adjustment  which  followed 
the  Civil  War,  rather  than  upon  the  barren  facts  of 
such  adjustment,  most  of  the  literature  which  deals 
with  the  period  possesses  little  value.  It  is  of  course 
worth  while  to  know  with  accuracy  just  what  the  "  Black 
and  Tan"  legislatures  of  Southern  states  spent  on 
their  printing  bills  and  stationery  accounts.  The  truth 
should  of  course  be  established  as  to  the  public  debts 
which  they  did  or  did  not  create.  Also  by  all  means 
let  them  be  given  credit  for  the  good  they  did,  as  well 

*  "The  Relation  of  the  Negroes  to  the  Whites  in  the  South,"  W.  E.  B.  Du- 
Bois,  "Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,"  July, 
1901,  pp.  137,  138. 


264     The  American  Race  Problem 

as  the  evil,  and  for  all  of  the  former  which  research  can 
bring  to  light. 

But  this  was  but  a  comparatively  small  part  of 
Reconstruction,  as  that  term  was  seared  into  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  Southern  people.  Tradition  may  not  be 
history,  but  if  we  would  interpret  the  meaning  and 
significance  of  the  great  epoch-marking  events  in  the 
life  of  a  people,  we  must  take  account  of  the  one  as 
well  as  of  the  other.  History  was  handed  down  by 
word  of  mouth  before  it  was  recorded  with  the  pen. 
For  the  light  we  need  it  is  idle  to  point  out  with  scien 
tific  exactness  that  in  actual  fact  technical  "Recon 
struction"  lasted  just  so  many  months  and  weeks  and 
days.  For  this  purpose  it  is  equally  idle  to  point 
out  the  exact  part  which  the  Negro  played  in  those 
troubled  times  —  to  give  the  number  of  Negro  voters 
in  each  state  and  county,  and  the  number  who  were 
members  of  state  legislatures.  This  writer  has  more 
than  once  declared  that  unscrupulous  mulattoes  and 
white  men  —  carpetbaggers  and  scalawags  —  have  more 
and  greater  sins  to  answer  for  in  Southern  political 
history  than  the  Negroes  who  became  their  ignorant 
dupes  and  tools.  The  latter  have  simply  shared  the 
catspaw's  fate.  And  of  this  one  crime  against  the 
Negro,  that  of  deliberately  pitting  him  against  his 
former  master  in  a  contest  about  the  inevitable  end 
of  which  there  could  have  been  no  shadow  of  doubt, 
the  South  can  wash  its  hands.  It  did  not  invite  the 
unequal  contest. 

What,  then,  is  this  thing  which  we  call  "Reconstruc- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     265 

tion"?  In  the  South  it  is  that  period  of  misery  which 
covered  the  decade  or  more  between  1865  and  1875 
or  1880,  and  measured  the  time  during  which  the  con 
trol  of  their  domestic  affairs  was  lost  and  regained 
by  Southern  white  men.  It  is  in  popular  comprehension 
the  more  or  less  clearly  defined,  but  always  darker, 
part  of  the  bitter  twenty  years  after  1860,  during  which 
the  South  was  the  scene  of  war,  rehabilitation  and 
the  undoing  of  the  latter  process.  It  was  the  period 
during  which,  amid  the  wreck  of  its  old  order  and  in 
the  midst  of  its  poverty,  it  was  delivered  up,  as  Presi 
dent  Hyde,  of  Bowdoin,  puts  it,  in  the  name  of  racial 
equality  to  political  and  social  chaos.  And  these  peo 
ple  trod  the  wine  press  alone.  They  were  pilloried 
in  public  print,  "investigated"  time  after  time,  al 
most  as  a  holiday  task,  and  "reported  on"  by  com 
mittees  of  hostile  congresses.  They  were  cartooned 
by  the  pen  of  Thomas  Nast,  their  every  fault  was  hunted 
out  and  magnified  and  set  upon  a  hill,  for  all  the 
world  to  gaze  at  as  typical  of  "a  barbarous  people." 
Their  misfortunes  were  paraded  as  the  well  earned 
fruit  of  treason.  They  were  branded  and  set  apart 
in  outer  darkness,  to  work  out  their  salvation  as  best 
they  might,  under  a  handicap  such  as  has  not  been 
imposed  upon  any  other  group  of  English-speaking 
people  in  modern  times. 

We  are  faced  with  the  simple  but  pregnant  fact  that 
since  1865  the  Southern  people  have  constituted  what 
is  probably  the  most  doggedly  determined  and  compact 
body  of  men  this  country  has  known.  Racial  solidar- 


266     The  American  Race  Problem 

ity  has  become  the  fixed  and  natural  habit  of  their 
thought  and  lives.  People  running  well  into  the  mil 
lions  in  numbers  and  occupying  a  vast  expanse  of 
territory,  do  not,  cannot,  maintain  such  an  attitude 
through  an  unbroken  reach  of  more  than  forty  years 
without  the  existence  of  some  great  fundamental  rea 
son.  It  is  folly  to  suppose  that  this  could  be  kept  up 
as  a  result  of  ''senseless  race  prejudice."  We  must 
account  for  conditions  of  such  significance,  when  we 
write  wise  monographs  on  the  "Negro  question"  or 
learnedly  descant  upon  the  best  methods  of  spreading 
education  for  the  developing  of  "backward  Southern 
civilisation."  Much  as  we  might  like  to  forget  this 
period  of  our  history,  it  cannot  be  ignored.  The  race 
problem  is  a  broad  one,  and  these  conditions  form  one 
of  its  essential  parts  —  the  forbidding  background  of 
the  recent  past,  upon  which  the  picture  of  the  present 
must  be  thrown  if  all  its  lights  and  shadows  would  be 
brought  to  view. 

The   Association    of   Ideas 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Southern  Reconstruction  to  the 
present  peace-loving  chaplain  of  the  United  States 
Senate.  Yet  Dr.  Hale  gives  us  a  clue  which  should 
help  us  to  understand  how  the  stress  of  the  Negro's 
first  days  of  freedom  is  naturally  associated  with  that  of 
his  later  life.  In  one  of  his  "Tarry  at  Home  Travels" 
the  venerable  New  Englander  indulges  the  follow 
ing  reflective  passage:  "The  French  always  brought 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     267 

Indians  with  them.  And  you  may  charge  it  to  the 
French  religion  or  not,  as  you  choose,  but  the  savage 
warfare  which  they  carried  on  under  French  direc 
tion  was  of  the  most  horrible  kind.  If  anybody  cares, 
it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  hatred  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  which  existed  formerly  in  New  Eng 
land  was  due  to  the  memory  that  the  savage  raids  of 
the  eighteenth  century  were  in  all  instances  mixed  up 
with  French  invasion,  and  were  ascribed  by  the  sufferers, 
more  or  less,  to  the  machinations  of  Latin  priests."* 

One  of  the  simplest  psychological  processes  of  the 
human  mind  is  that  of  the  association  of  ideas.  And, 
"if  anybody  cares,''  it  operates  as  effectively  in  the 
South  in  associating  the  Negro  in  politics  with  the 
odium  of  a  hundred  acts  of  Reconstruction  days,  which 
apparently  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  history,  as  it  did  in 
New  England  in  associating  Catholicism  with  Indian 
massacres.  And  we  might  call  on  psychology  to  help 
us  interpret  more  than  one  other  phenomenon  which 
seems  to  puzzle  the  race  problem  specialist.  The 
writer  has  a  friend,  born  and  reared  and  living  in  a 
Northern  state,  whose  family  was  "expelled"  from 
Haiti  at  the  time  of  its  slave  insurrection.  His  people 
suffered  unspeakable  barbarities  in  the  process.  Whether 
or  not  family  tradition  has  magnified  those  suffer 
ings  might  interest  the  historian  bent  upon  an  exclusive 
search  for  time-worn  actualities.  It  is  not  of  so  much 
concern  to  our  present  purpose  as  is  the  knowledge  of 
the  very  real  and  existing  fact  that  this  man  can  with 

*  Outlook ,  May  6,  1905,  p.  76. 


268     The  American  Race  Problem 

difficulty  to-day  tolerate  a  Negro  in  his  presence.     Yet 
he  is  a  kindly  man  and  a  just. 

A  picture  comes  to  my  mind  of  a  gentle,  almost 
womanly  tender  old  man,  telling  in  the  monotone  of 
age,  around  a  winter's  fireside,  some  of  his  Reconstruc 
tion  experiences  —  the  kind  which  only  Southern 
children  have  heard  from  reminiscent  lips,  the  kind 
which  find  no  place  in  Reconstruction  histories.  He 
had  surrendered  in  good  faith  at  Appomattox,  and 
had  found  his  way  back  to  the  place  he  had  once  called 
home,  thinking  in  his  heart  that  war  and  invasion  were 
really  over,  now  that  the  fighting  was  done.  He  told 
of  the  humiliations  and  heartburnings  and  bitter  things 
which  followed  the  second  invasion.  And  of  how  mild 
and  commonplace  by  comparison  became  the  incidents 
of  real  war,  in  which  he  had  been  given  a  fighting  man's 
chance.  He  told  of  how  he  had  been  arrested  by  a 
Negro  bureau  officer  upon  some  trivial  charge.  He 
was  a  peaceable  and  law-loving  man,  and  accompanied 
his  custodian  without  hesitation  or  suspicion.  The 
bureau  headquarters  were  some  distance  away  and  the 
night  was  bitter  cold.  Darkness  coming  on,  the  officer 
suggested  stopping  at  a  Negro  cabin  for  the  night. 
He  demurred,  but  finally  consented.  While  standing 
in  front  of  the  fire  he  was  suddenly  seized  by  the  officer 
and  his  Negro  host.  He  was  tied  hand  and  foot  and 
taken  to  the  stable  lot.  Here  a  rail  fence  was  raised 
and  his  head  thrust  under  it,  his  neck  resting  on  the 
bottom  rail.  In  this  position  he  was  left  during  the 
long  winter  night,  his  face  beat  upon  by  driving  sleet, 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     269 

his  war-worn  body  racked  with  pain.  That  was  a 
long  while  ago,  and  he  all  but  smiled  as  he  told  the 
story  —  a  queer,  non-humorous  sort  of  smile.  I  dare 
say  it  would  be  almost  a  useless  waste  of  time  to  tell 
him  and  his  family  and  his  country  neighbours  that 
the  so-called  "horrors  of  Reconstruction"  were  in  fact, 
upon  the  latest  scientific  analysis,  found  and  actually 
demonstrated  to  have  been  mere  creations  of  the  over 
wrought  Southern  mind. 

And  how  many  such  "trivial  incidents,"  as  the 
great  world's  history  is  measured,  incidents  long  since 
forgotten  elsewhere,  were  necessary  to  create  a  more 
or  less  fixed  and  definite  mental  attitude  toward  the 
period  with  which  they  are  inseparably  associated? 
Scattered  throughout  all  this  region  there  were  enough 
and  to  spare.  Each  county,  each  little  community 
or  isolated  group,  has  in  its  own  simple  way  its  own 
tales  to  tell  to  its  children  —  even  though  they  may 
not  be  recounted  in  the  books  from  which  we  learn 
the  history  of  that  time. 

If  you  live  in  a  part  of  the  world  where  present 
environment  makes  it  possible  to  do  so,  attempt  to 
frame  for  yourself  a  picture  of  the  horrors  through 
which  the  white  people  of  Haiti  lived  during  the  in 
ception  of  a  government  founded  upon  a  massacre  and 
perpetuated  by  assassination.  Then  read  Wendell 
Phillips's  apostrophe  to  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  or 
Harriet  Martineau's  "The  Hour  and  the  Man."  Pic 
ture  to  yourself  the  mental  suffering  inflicted  by  such 
experiences  as  I  have  described  above.  Estimate 


270     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  abiding  effect  upon  the  communities  in  which  they 
occurred,  and  you  may  then  begin  to  appreciate  how  far 
such  an  observation  as  the  following  falls  short  of 
fathoming  the  depth  of  the  real  relation  between  Recon 
struction  and  present  conditions:  "Now  ensued  the 
trial  of  Negro  suffrage,  and  most  Southern  writers  on 
the  subject  of  the  present  relations  of  the  Negroes  and 
whites  trace  all  the  trouble  back  to  those  unholy  acts 
of  Congress  and  Constitutional  Amendments.  Every 
southern  child  as  he  grows  up  becomes  possessed  of  a 
fixed  belief  that  from  1865  to  about  1875  the  South 
was  governed  by  an  unrighteous  combination  of  Neg 
roes  with  a  few  'scalawags'  or  on-the-soil  Republicans, 
and  'Carpetbaggers,'  or  Northern  political  adventurers. 
These  things  are  within  the  memory  of  thousands 
of  living  men  and  women,  and  yet  how  warped  al 
ready  is  the  popular  impression!"* 

Any  postgraduate  man  at  Harvard,  Columbia,  or 
Johns  Hopkins  might  easily  submit  as  a  thesis  a  more 
"accurate"  account  of  Reconstruction  than  would 
probably  be  written  by  anyone  who  had  himself  under 
gone  the  process,  saving  a  few  rare  exceptions.  It 
would  answer  every  purpose  of  any  investigator  who 
wished  for  knowledge  of  the  exact  dates  between  which 
this  state  or  that  lived  its  Reconstruction  life,  who 
wanted  to  know  the  amount  of  each  and  every  issue 
of  bonds  made  during  the  period  in  question,  the  tax 
levy  of  each  county,  and  the  amount  of  taxes  squan- 

*  "The  Realities  of  Negro  Suffrage,"  Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  Proceedings  of 
the  American  Political  Science  Assn.,  second  annual  meeting,  Baltimore,  1905, 
p.  iS4- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     271 

dered,  as  well  as  properly  used.  From  it  possibly  we 
could  learn  much  about  the  proper  division  of  respon 
sibility  between  Negroes,  scalawags,  and  carpetbaggers. 
We  might  be  told  just  how  honestly  or  dishonestly 
the  affairs  of  the  Freedman's  Bureau  were  administered. 
But  after  all,  for  the  purpose  of  measuring  the  effect 
of  Reconstruction  upon  present  relations  between 
Negroes  and  whites  in  the  Southern  states  our  informa 
tion  would  be  of  little  value. 

The  heart  of  it  all  is  simply  the  common-sense  fact 
that,  like  New  England  hatred  of  Catholicism,  to  revert 
to  Dr.  Hale,  the  still  surviving  Southern  hatred  of 
Reconstruction  and  opposition  to  Negro  suffrage  are 
due  in  large  part  to  the  "mixing  up"  of  many  things, 
"ascribed  by  the  sufferers,  more  or  less,"  to  the  in 
jection  of  the  Negro  into  politics.  The  one  inevitable 
result  of  this  programme  was  to  hopelessly,  almost 
cruelly,  and  as  it  now  seems  perhaps  even  permanently, 
identify  him  with  a  period  for  which  in  our  history  we 
find  no  parallel.  Professor  Dunning,  with  a  discern 
ment  of  the  acute  mental  aspects  of  the  situation, 
which  are  usually  lost  sight  of  in  a  mass  of  physical 
details,  has  likened  the  condition  of  the  Southern 
people,  in  the  presence  of  the  "remorseless  approach 
of  Negro  rule,"  to  that  of  "the  prisoner  of  tradition 
who  watched  the  walls  of  his  cell  close  slowly  in  from 
day  to  day  to  crush  him."*  But  neither  "  The  Pit  and 
the  Pendulum,"  nor  any  other  creation  of  Poe's  imagin 
ation,  nor  even  the  miseries  of  the  crimes  in  the  South 


"Essays  on  the  Civil  War  and  Reconstructipn,"  p.  243, 


272     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  France,  as  touched  by  the  magic  pen  of  Dumas,  can 
convey  to  the  mind  which  does  not  know  and  the  heart 
which  has  not  felt,  a  sense  of  the  exquisite  mental 
torture  through  which  these  people  passed.  Mr. 
Lamar,  great  apostle  of  peace  as  he  was,  said  that 
"the  iron  thrust  into  the  hearts  of  the  Southern  people 
by  this  wicked  and  relentless  policy  burned  deeper 
than  the  wounds  which  followed  hostile  armies." 

Before  we  go  further  we  may  learn  something  else 
from  this  association  of  ideas.  Probably  one  of  the 
most  difficult  things  for  a  Northern  man  to  understand 
about  Southern  conditions  is  the  attitude  so  generally 
assumed  in  the  South  toward  Northern  teachers  of 
Negro  schools.  It  is  largely  a  matter  of  sentiment 
and  suggestion.  There  is  no  opposition  to  such  schools, 
per  se,  and  no  personal  feeling  toward  those  who  conduct 
them.*  The  chief  ground  of  complaint  is  against  the 
social  attitude  of  Southern  people  toward  teachers 
in  these  schools.  This  is  not  difficult  to  explain.  If 
we  will  study  the  one  phase  of  Reconstruction  of  which 
the  North  is  proud,  the  crusade  for  education,  we  will 
have  little  difficulty  in  catching  the  spirit  which  seemed 
to  characterise  the  times.  A  candid  reading  of  contem 
porary  literature  compels  the  realisation  that  where 
the  white  people  were  considered  at  all  it  was  too  often 

*  When  the  Mary  Holmes  Seminary,  at  West  Point,  Mississippi,  burned 
some  years  ago,  its  president  wrote:  "The  kindness  of  the  citizens  here  — 
white  and  black  —  has  been  very  marked.  The  best  people  in  the  town  came 
out  during  the  fire  and  urged  us  and  the  teachers  to  come  to  their  houses.  Twice 
our  number  could  have  been  comfortably  provided  for  in  the  places  that  were 
offered.  Certainly  we  can  not  doubt  the  unselfish  sympathy  and  interest  of  the 
people  in  this  place  in  our  work."  Letter  from  Rev.  H.  N.  Payne,  in  Assembly 
Herald,  N.  Y.,  May,  1899,  p.  285. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     273 

in  the  spirit  of  a  " charity"  more  galling  than  bayo- 
netted  tyranny  itself.  These  early  teachers  came  from  a 
section  which  had  long  boasted  its  intellectual  and 
educational  superiority  over  the  South.  Feeling  their 
superiority  they  too  often  showed  that  they  felt  it.  It 
is  not  uncommon  even  now,  to  see  this  idea  coupled 
with  the  very  complaints  of  which  we  speak. 

During  the  decade  after  1865  the  South  was  made  to 
realise  this  attitude  in  a  way  which  must  have  been 
irritating  beyond  measure.  The  keynote  to  the  too 
common  spirit  behind  this  propaganda  may  be  read  in 
the  following  extracts  from  an  "official"  sermon  before 
the  Massachusetts  legislature:  Speaking  of  "the  obdur 
acy  of  rebellion"  the  preacher  said  it  was  "Of  God"- 
"like  the  hardening  of  Pharaoh's  heart,  that  the  whole 
Southern  system  of  life,  labour,  and  society  may  be 
drowned  together  in  this  red  sea  —  and  not  a  vestige 
of  the  old  malign  civilisation  of  that  portion  of  our 
country  survive  these  bloody  years."  Then  he  told 
of  "our  new  duties" — "to  send  thither  the  seeds  of 
New  England  life  and  institutions,  to  be  scattered  broad 
cast  and  first  of  all  to  occupy  the  ground.  There 
will  be  also  a  work,"  he  continued,  "worthy  our  best 
endeavours,  to  bring  up,  ennoble  and  save  a  degraded 
remnant  of  Southern  population*  Here  all  that  is 
generous  and  charitable,  all  that  is  magnanimous  and 
forgiving  in  the  heart  of  New  England,  will  have  free 
scope.  We  shall  have  to  show  our  former  enemies  how 
sincerely  and  truly  we  can  be,  and  are  their  friends. 

*  Italics  in  the  original. 


274     The  American  Race  Problem 

We  shall  have  to  bless  them  in  spite  of  their  prejudices 
and  all  the  depressing  weight  of  their  old  habits.  We 
shall  have  to  show  them  how  much  better  we  can  do  for 
them  than  they  have  ever  done  for  themselves.  .  .  . 
to  inspire  them  with  hope,  diligence,  economy,  and 
the  ambition  for  self-improvement  —  to  set  before 
them  on  their  own  soil  the  models  of  our  own  sweet 
and  comfortable  domestic  life  —  to  build  school  houses 
and  churches  and  send  them  teachers  and  preachers, 
and  sift  into  all  their  brightening  consciousness  the 
light  of  letters,  the  issues  of  the  daily  press,  and  a  fresh, 
healthful,  evangelical  literature.  This  grand  charity 
will  tax  our  faith  and  our  self-denial  to  the  utmost  for 
years  to  come."*  Less  than  thirteen  years  ago  this 
writer  listened  to  an  address  by  a  Northern  woman, 
before  a  convention  in  a  Southern  town,  which  breathed 
in  its  every  word  the  same  sentiment,  spirit,  and  ideas 
which  permeated  the  sermon  from  which  we  have 
quoted. 

And  these  teachers  did  but  little  to  seek  the  good 
will  of  white  people.  How  could  they  hope  to,  coming 
as  they  did?  They  were  peculiarly  evangels  of  light 
to  the  brother  in  black.  And  it  is  too  true  that  many 
of  them  taught  politics  as  well  as  books.  The  two  were 
closely  associated.  The  controlling  purpose  in  many 
minds  was  the  fitting  of  the  freedmen  for  the  share  in 
public  life  which  they  were  told  was  theirs  of  "right." 


*  "The  Work  of  New  England  in  the  Future  of  Our  Country."  A  sermon 
before  the  Executive  and  Legislative  Departments  of  the  Government  of  Massa- 
chuetts  at  the  Annual  Election,  January  4,  1865,  by  A-  L.  Stone,  D.  D.,  Boston, 
1865,  pp.  43,  44. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     275 

In  a  rhapsody  on  "labour  and  education  linked  hand 
in  hand"  one  enthusiastic  heart  predicted  that  the 
freedmen,  "ambitious  only  for  an  extended  freedom 
of  soul  and  mind,"  "are  destined  shortly  to  become  the 
ruling  race  in  the  South."* 

It  is  hardly  strange  that  the  Southern  people,  situated 
as  they  were  during  this  period,  should  have  adopted 
the  rigid  policy  which  became  almost  a  law  of  their 
social  life.  Their  attitude  was  simply  this:  "You 
come  here  as  the  '  friends,  deliverers,  and  saviours '  of 
the  Negro.  You  have  taught  him  that  we  are  his 
hereditary  enemies,  and  have  been  for  generations  his 
heartless  taskmasters.  In  season  and  out  you  delight 
to  tell  him  of  his  'rights,'  while  to  us  you  speak  only 
of  'duties.'  You  instill  it  into  his  mind,  as  a  cardinal 
tenet  of  his  new  found  faith,  that  he  is  the  equal  of  the 
white  man  —  as  good  as,  if  not  better  than,  his  former 
master.  Holding  your  ideas,  and  pursuing  the  policy 
you  do,  there  is  nothing  in  common  between  you  and 
us.  Go  your  way  and  we  shall  go  ours.  We  shall  not 
molest  you,  but  we  will  let  you  alone."  We  must 
appreciate  and  bear  in  mind  the  conditions  which 
surrounded  Southern  people,  if  we  would  understand 
their  course.  They  were  helpless  in  the  presence  of 
what  they  felt  to  be  another  invasion,  and  used  such 
weapons  as  they  could  command.  One  of  the  most 
powerful  of  these  was  social  ostracism,  and  it  was  in 
voked  against  all  who  in  their  minds  sought  to  keep 
the  iron  heel  upon  their  necks.  Northern  teachers 

*  "Freedmen  of  the  South,"  Slaughter,  1869,  p.  179. 


276      The  American  Race  Problem 

shared  the  fate  of  association  with  the  Northern  carpet 
bagger,  the  Negro,  and  the  scalawag.  They  all  came 
in  together,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  to  some  extent 
for  many  years  they  should  share  in  Southern  minds 
the  odium  attached  to  the  period  and  institution  whose 
inauguration  was  first  heralded  by  their  approach. 
We  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  question  of  the 
correctness  or  incorrectness  of  the  Southern  attitude. 
This  is  neither  an  indictment  nor  a  defence.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  in  part  explain  a  condition  which  so  many 
people  seem  not  able  to  understand. 

McKinley,  Roosevelt,  and  the  Negro 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  the  Negro  was  not 
a  very  real,  and  often  controlling,  political  factor 
during  Reconstruction.  The  most  far  reaching,  as  it 
was  criminally  inexcusable,  feature  of  the  politics  of 
the  time,  was  the  deliberate  engendering  of  animosity 
between  the  Negro  and  his  former  master.  In  a  hun 
dred  ways  hatred  of  the  master  was  taught  as  a  tenet 
of  political  faith.  The  inculcating  of  lessons  of  racial 
estrangement  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  party  dogma 
and  became  the  stock  in  trade  of  party  success.  This 
was  the  work  of  a  class  of  white  men  and  mulattoes 
whose  sole  object  was  that  of  turning  the  Negro's 
ignorance  to  their  own  unscrupulous  ends.*  There  is 

*  I  have  often  had  recalled  to  my  mind  a  personal  incident  which  made  a 
lasting  impression  upon  me,  and  which  throws  a  suggestive  side  light  upon 
this  feature  of  the  period  in  question.  Shortly  before  the  election  of  Mr.  Cleve 
land,  in  1884,  I  was  one  day  fishing  with  a  very  close  and  confidential  friend — 
a  very  black  little  darkey  of  about  my  own  age.  He  edged  closer  to  me  on  the 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     277 

abundant  testimony  to  their  success.  As  late  as  1901 
Booker  T.  Washington  tells  us  of  Negroes  who,  "through 
the  encouragement,  help,  and  advice  of  Southern  white 
people,  have  accumulated  thousands  of  dollars'  worth 
of  property,  but  who,  at  the  same  time,  would  never 
think  of  going  to  those  same  persons  for  advice  con 
cerning  the  casting  of  their  ballots."* 

Mr.  Baldwin  remarks  of  Negro  suffrage  that  "From 
this  source  alone  the  difficulties  of  the  problem  have 
been  infinitely  increased.  .  .  .  The  legal  right  of 
the  Negro  to  vote  has  been  the  only  serious  cause  of 
hostility  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  white  man." 
He  thus  confirms  Mr.  Washington:  "The  Negro  is 
the  friend  of  the  white  man  in  all  matters  except  poli 
tics;  but  in  politics  he  has  seldom  joined  forces  with 
his  white  neighbours  for  the  common  interests  of  the 
community  in  which  he  lives,  "f 

This  is  merely  one  of  the  seemingly  permanently 
harmful  results  of  the  policy  in  question.  Its  immedi 
ate  effect  was  to  give  to  the  dominant  white  and  mu 
latto  factions  absolute  control  of  a  compact  body 
of  votes  which  they  could  always  use  as  at  least  a 


projecting  log  on  which  we  sat,  and  almost  in  a  whisper  asked  me  if  I  knew 
that  if  Mr.  Cleveland  were  elected  the  white  folks  would  have  slavery  again. 
Close  as  was  the  daily  companionship  between  us,  he  would  not  accept  my 
youthfully  indignant  denial  of  such  a  programme,  nor  disclose  the  source  of  his 
private  information.  Between  laborious  whiffs  at  our  "crossvine  cigars," 
he  finally  told  me  that  "de  word  had  been  spread"  by  a  local  political  preacher, 
of  the  dire  consequences  of  a  Democratic  victory —  and  that  "it  had  been  sont 
down  to  him  fum  de  Noth."  And  this  was  more  than  nineteen  years  after  the 
Civil  War. 

*  "Up  from  Slavery,"  p.  236. 

t  Wm.  H.  Baldwin,  Second  Capon  Springs  Conference,  1899,  Proceedings,  pp. 
98-99. 


278     The  American  Race  Problem 

balance  of  power.  Hiram  R.  Revels,  once  a  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  himself  an  excellent  man  of  mixed 
blood,  in  a  letter  to  Grant,  urging  the  use  of  the  Presi 
dent's  influence  on  the  Senate  in  seating  Mr.  Lamar, 
declared  that  his  people  had  been  "enslaved  in  mind  by 
unprincipled  adventurers. ' '  The  South  has  been  charged 
for  more  than  a  generation  with  drawing  the  colour 
line  for  political  advantage,  and  the  term  "  Solid  South  " 
is  sought  to  be  converted  into  one  of  reproach.  The 
South  established  no  colour  line  when  she  attempted 
the  rehabilitation  of  her  fortunes  under  the  Lincoln- 
Johnson  reconstruction  plan  in  1865.  There  was 
simply  no  such  thought  as  that  of  taking  the  Negro  into 
political  partnership.  To  people  who  lived  in  the 
South  and  appreciated  the  conditions  which  surrounded 
them,  such  a  thing  was  unthinkable.  The  failure  or 
refusal  to  offer  suffrage  to  the  Negro  was  merely  the 
natural,  as  it  should  have  been  the  expected,  course, 
and  was  entirely  devoid  of  any  colour-line  significance. 
The  foundations  for  this  line  were  laid  when  the  white 
man  was  discriminated  against  politically,  penalised 
and  deprived  of  controlling  voice  in  his  own  domestic 
affairs.  It  came  with  the  military  Reconstruction 
Act  of  1867,  and  the  first  "Solid  South  "  known  to  Ameri 
can  political  history  was  not  white  but  black.  When 
the  white  man  slowly,  and  in  the  face  of  almost  over 
whelming  obstacles,  regained  control  of  his  own,  the 
colour  line  had  been  drawn  by  other  hands  than  his  — • 
distinctly  and  pitilessly  drawn.  He  simply  accepted 
what  he  found, 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     279 

Twenty-six  years  ago  Professor  W.  H.  Councill, 
now  head  of  the  coloured  Agricultural  and  Mechanical 
College  of  Alabama,  warned  his  people  against  continu 
ing  to  perpetuate  this  line.  In  a  speech  at  Tuscumbia, 
Ala.,  in  1881,  he  frankly  recognised  the  conditions 
referred  to  here  —  the  solid  racial  alignment  of  Negroes 
under  pernicious  leadership.  A  prophetic  extract  from 
his  speech  is  worth  recalling,  in  view  of  a  subsequent 
fulfilment  to  its  very  letter:  "If  you  do  not  now 
make  friends  of,  and  unite  with,  the  white  people 
among  whom  you  live,  on  all  questions  touching  our 
civil  and  political  welfare,  you  will  regret  it  in  time  to 
come.  It  will  not  be  twenty-five  years  before  the 
white  people  of  this  country,  if  they  have  found  that 
you  go  en  masse  against  them,  right  or  wrong,  on  all 
political  questions,  will  come  into  power  and  take  from 
you  the  ballot  which  you  continue  to  cast  against  them. 
The  Republican  party  will  grow  tired  of  you,  and  seek 
to  unload  the  Negro  element,  and  like  the  bat  which 
was  disowned  by  the  beasts,  and  not  recognised  by  the 
birds,  you  will  find  favour  with  neither  Democrats  nor 
Republicans."* 

But  aside  from  its  general  bearing  on  the  modern 
problem,  what  has  Reconstruction  to  do  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  appointment  of  Negroes  to  office?  How 
do  we  account  for  the  storm  which  his  actions  raised, 
when  we  are  told  that  the  South  accepted  without 
protest  similar  appointments  at  the  hands  of  his  prede- 


*  Reproduced  in  "Bright  Side  of  the  Southern  Question"  —  an  address  at 
Corona,  Ala.,  Aug.  25,  1903,  p.  10. 


a8o       The  American  Race  Problem 

cessor?  Probably  the  best  statement  of  the  case  for 
Mr.  Roosevelt  was  that  made  in  an  editorial  on  the 
President  and  the  South,  in  the  Outlook,  of  February 
7,  1903.  That  thoroughly  fair  and  honest  journal  in 
part  thus  diagnosed  the  then  rather  turbulent  situation : 
"Nor  is  it  out  of  the  common  that  this  race  prejudice 
should  disregard  the  plain  facts  of  current  history, 
for  none  are  so  blind  as  those  who  do  not  wish  to  see. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  notion  that  President  Roosevelt 
has  been  forcing  the  race  issue  upon  the  South  is  in 
curious  contradiction  to  the  actual  facts.  Probably 
no  man  ever  went  into  the  Presidential  chair  with  a 
more  sincere  desire  to  promote  harmony  between  the 
North  and  the  South  as  well  as  between  the  races, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  do  something  really  to  help  the 
blacks  through  rewarding  those  who  by  their  lives  had 
won  the  confidence  of  the  whites,  and  who  possessed 
high  individual  character."  Then  follows  a  recital 
of  various  appointments,  and  the  statement  is  made 
that  "The  net  result  is  that  at  the  present  time  there 
are  fewer  Negroes,  by  two,  holding  Presidental  offices 
in  the  South  than  there  were  under  President  Mc- 
Kinley."  The  review  concludes  as  follows:  "We 
think  ourselves  warranted  in  saying  that  the  President 
believes  that  the  Negro  should  give  himself  to  the 
work  of  securing  education,  property,  and  the  culti 
vation  of  high  character,  and  that  it  has  been  and  is 
far  from  the  President's  intention  to  do  anything  that 
would  unduly  excite  the  political  ambition  of  the 
black  man;  but  he  also  believes  that  the  recognition 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     281 

of  some  of  the  worthy  coloured  men  of  the  country 
is  wise  and  proper,  and  tends  to  encourage  others  to 
make  themselves  worthy  and  deserving  of  recognition. 
We  believe  that  the  best  men  in  the  South  agree  with 
the  President  in  this  conviction  now,  and  more  of  them 
will  agree  with  him  as  time  goes  on." 

It  is  here  assumed  that  opposition  to  the  appoint 
ments  in  question  was  based  on  a  blind  "race  pre 
judice"  which  ignored  "the  plain  facts  of  current  his 
tory";  that  the  Southern  idea  of  the  forcing  of  "the 
race  issue"  was  based  upon  the  assumption  that  Roose 
velt  had  made  more  Negro  appointments  than  Mc- 
Kinley,  whereas  the  contrary  was  true;  that  "the 
blacks"  were  helped  through  thus  "rewarding"  the 
worthy;  and  that  "the  best  men  in  the  South"  agreed 
with  the  President's  opinion  in  this  regard.  Who, 
then,  and  what,  were  responsible  for  the  indisputable 
attitude  of  the  South  toward  the  President?  Surely 
there  must  have  been  at  least  a  few  "best  men"  in  that 
section  who  did  not  share  the  President's  "conviction," 
and  yet  were  actuated  by  something  higher  than  blind 
and  unreasonable  "race  prejudice."  The  matter  can 
not  be  thus  dismissed,  if  we  really  care  to  sound  its 
depths  —  whether  from  motives  of  interest  or  curiosity. 

The  truth  is,  there  was  much  more  in  the  situation 
than  could  be  comprehended  within  the  limits  of  a 
mathematical  demonstration  that  the  number  of  Negro 
office-holders  was  greater  under  McKinley  than  under 
Roosevelt.  The  mere  making  of  such  appointments 
did  not  differentiate  one  of  these  men  from  the  other. 


282      The  American  Race  Problem 

In  a  speech  in  the  House,  on  June  4,  1900,  Mr.  Grosve- 
nor,  of  Ohio,  placed  upon  enduring  record  this  eulogium 
of  William  McKinley's  official  recognition  of  the  Ameri 
can  Negro:  "And  here  it  is  proper  to  say  that  while 
Mr.  McKinley  has  been  deeply  engrossed  with  the 
most  intricate  problems  of  statecraft,  he  has  not  been 
unmindful  of  the  just  claims  of  the  race.  He  has  dis 
tributed  the  official  rewards  with  rare  tact  and  judg 
ment,  and  no  element  which  assisted  in  the  masterful 
triumph  of  1896  is  without  representation.  The  Negro 
vote  has  fared  handsomely  at  his  hands.  Coloured 
men  of  intelligence  and  character  have  been  selected 
from  every  section  of  the  country  to  fill  positions  of 
trust  and  profit  under  the  administration,  and  the 
instance  has  yet  to  be  recorded  where  the  honour  has 
been  bestowed  unworthily.  Indeed,  while  it  is  a  fact 
of  great  significance  that  the  President  has  within 
nineteen  months  appointed  twice  as  many  Negroes  as 
any  previous  administration,  developments  are  now 
being  so  shaped  by  him,  through  a  revision  of  the  civil- 
service  regulations,  that  the  number  of  Negro  office 
holders  will  be  increased  fourfold."* 

Not  only  did  Mr.  McKinley  appoint  more  Negroes 
to  office  than  did  Mr.  Roosevelt,  but  he  was  equally 
as  much  abused  for  doing  so.  Here  is  where  some  of 
the  "plain  facts  of  current  history"  have  really  been 
ignored,  both  North  and  South.  Nor  was  the  violent 
opposition  to  his  Negro  appointments  confined  to  the 
Southern  press.  A  resolution  passed  by  the  legisla- 

*  Congressional  Record,  Vol.  33,  Part  8,  appendix,  p.  441. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     283 

ture  of  Georgia  censured  him  in  unequivocal  terms 
for  appointing  a  Negro  postmaster  at  the  town  of 
Hogansville  in  that  state.  He  not  only  appointed 
more  Negroes  to  office  than  Roosevelt,  but  he  appointed, 
in  the  main,  a  "meaner"  class  of  Negroes  —  or 
more  of  the  meaner  class.  With  the  indisputable  facts 
of  the  records  of  both  men  before  us,  with  Grosvenor's 
unstinted  praise  of  McKinley  in  mind,  we  must  go 
deeper  than  the  bare  matter  of  official  conduct  if  we 
would  find  the  explanation  we  seek.* 

In  an  interesting  essay  on  "Representative  American 
Negroes"  the  late  Paul  Lawrence  Dunbar  declares 
that  "Some  men  are  born  great,  some  achieve  great 
ness  and  others  lived  during  the  Reconstruction  period."! 
From  the  very  circumstances  of  the  Negro's  introduc 
tion  to  the  world  of  freedom,  the  man  who  had  greatness 
thrust  upon  him,  the  Negro  of  the  Reconstruction 
period,  became  the  type  of  representative  Negro  to 
Southern  people.  The  "Negro"  in  office  in  the  South, 

*  It  is  not  possible  here  to  discuss  the  history  of  Negro  office  holding  in  this 
country,  but  historically  the  idea  of  Negro  officialism  has  always  been  much 
more  repugnant  to  American  white  people  than  that  of  mere  Negro  suffrage. 
The  history  of  the  XV.  Amendment  resolution  discloses  the  contemporaneous 
white  attitude  on  the  former  proposition  with  unmistakable  clearness.  That 
resolution  was  barely  forced  through,  as  it  was,  and  then  only  by  a  conference 
committee  compromise  which  eliminated  the  words  which  inhibited  restrictive 
state  and  Federal  action  as  to  holding  office.  Senator  Edmunds  refused  to  sign 
the  conference  report,  because  the  compromise  amendment,  as  we  have  it  now, 
did  not  go  far  enough,  in  that  it  left  with  the  state  the  right  to  prohibit  Negroes 
from  holding  office.  Suffrage  merely,  not  office  holding,  was  the  only  thing 
thought  to  have  been  effected  at  the  time.  In  the  Georgia  readmission  case 
Congress  dodged  the  question,  and  I  do  not  now  recall  any  decision  on  the 
precise  point  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Historically,  there 
is  nothing  in  the  XV.  Amendment  to  prevent  a  state  from  fixing  different  quali 
fications  for  white  and  Negro  office-holders  —  or  even  declaring  Negroes  entirely 
ineligible  to  office.  Voting  and  holding  office  are  two  distinct  privileges,  for 
which  different  qualifications  are  quite  commonly  required. 

t  "The  Negro  Problem,"  1903,  p.  189. 


284        The  American  Race  Problem 

when  placed  there  over  local  protest,  means,  much  more 
to  the  protesting  community  than  a  more  or  less  pom 
pous,  and  more  or  less  efficient  mulatto  official.'  He 
stands  for  something  else  to  them,  for  something  they 
would  like  to  forget.  Put  in  over  protest,  he  becomes 
typical  of  a  period  and  condition  much  too  recent  to 
have  been  forgotten.  Once  more,  in  ways  not  notice 
able  to  those  for  whom  he  has  no  such  significance, 
he  represents  the  idea  of  a  government  of  force.  He 
becomes,  almost  unconsciously  to  themselves  perhaps, 
the  living  symbol  of  a  government  alien  to  local  senti 
ment,  one  to  which  the  wishes,  instincts  and  traditions 
of  those  most  concerned  by  every  claim  of  local  interest, 
are  all  mere  relics  of  a  bygone  time. 

Dunbar  would  draw  the  line  against  the  political 
Negro  as  a  representative  of  his  race.  This  is  easier 
said  than  done.  If  we  could  blot  from  the  history  of  the 
past  generation  the  strife  occasioned  by  the  Negro  in 
politics,  there  would  not  be  left  enough  of  sectional 
differences  to  furnish  material  for  a  question  for  a 
schoolboy's  debating  society.  Remove  that  from  the 
record,  and  you  would  not  have  a  baker's  dozen  of 
contested  election  cases.  There  would  have  been 
nothing  for  investigating  committees  to  "investigate," 
and  Reconstruction  would  possess  no  such  significance 
as  it  holds  to-day  for  millions  of  Americans.  The 
Negro  has  played  too  prominent  a  part  in  Southern 
politics  to  be  relegated  in  a  moment  to  the  limbo  of 
things  not  only  dead  but  unreturnable.  Now  and 
then  he  is  forced  to  the  front  again,  and  comes  just 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     285 

sufficiently  in  evidence  to  stir  old  embers  and  galvanise 
dead  issues  into  seeming  life.  And  the  extent  to  which 
this  'effect  follows  Negro  appointments  depends  in 
large  degree  upon  all  the  attendant  circumstances  — 
upon  the  manner  in  which  the  appointment  is  made 
and  the  manner  of  man  who  makes  it.  And  here  is  in 
part  an  explanation  of  the  difference  of  the  significance 
of  this  aspect  of  the  McKinley  and  Roosevelt  adminis 
trations  to  the  Southern  people. 

In  an  address  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  in  1905,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  stated  the  proposition  that  "even  justice 
can  be  administered  in  a  manner  which  leaves  you 
with  the  heartiest  dislike  for  the  person  who  adminis 
ters  it."*  Here  he  gives  a  clue  to  the  secret  of  part  of 
his  trouble  with  Southern  people.  He  has  in  large 
measure  been  the  victim  of  his  own  personality.  In 
the  relations  of  men  with  men  there  is  a  difference  be 
tween  the  suaviter  in  modo  and  the  fortiter  in  re.  It 
often  marks  the  difference  between  success  and  failure 
in  matters  wherein  tact  must  play  its  part.  It  is  some 
times  the  difference  between  the  simple  and  the  strenu 
ous  life,  between  William  McKinley  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  In  his  every  public  and  private  relation 
Mr.  McKinley  was  one  of  the  most  diplomatic  presidents 
this  country  has  known.  Tender  and  gentle  in  marked 
degree,  his  was  easily  the  most  lovable  personality 
that  has  filled  the  executive  chair.  The  possession  of 
either  of  these  attributes  —  gentleness  or  diplomacy  — 
so  valuable  to  McKinley  in  inaugurating  the  era  of 

*  Press  report,  Washington  Post,  June  22,  1905,  p.  i.  col.  2. 


286     The  American  Race  Problem 

good  feeling  which  was  the  chief  glory  of  his  final  days, 
unfortunately  can  in  no  sense  be  truthfully  ascribed 
to  his  successor. 

In  none  of  McKinley's  Negro  appointments  was  there 
an  accompanying  flourish  of  trumpets.  They  were 
not  heralded  as  ushering  in  the  dawn  of  the  day  in  whose 
sun  was  to  ripen  the  final  fruit  of  emancipation.  They 
were  plain,  every-day  political  rewards  for  political 
service,  placed  where  they  were  supposed  to  do  the 
most  good  for  the  party.  This  was  all  there  was  of 
McKinley's  "Negro  policy."  His  appointments  were 
devoid  of  other  significance.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  course  could  not  have  been  better 
adapted  to  making  an  impression  upon  the  minds  of 
these  childish  people  if  he  had  been  a  lifelong  student 
of  Negro  character.  Without  knowledge  that  he  was 
doing  so,  he  appealed  irresistibly  to  the  Negro's  love 
of  talk,  his  fondness  for  palaver,  his  delight  in  the 
cajoling  jugglery  of  words,  however  specious  the  prom 
ises  they  frame.  The  frequent  declarations  of  a 
policy  of  "square  deal  for  black  and  white  alike" 
the  enunciation  of  the  platform  of  "all  men  up,  not 
some  men  down,"  the  solemnly  proclaimed  opening 
of  "the  door  of  hope,"  with  himself  as  its  beckoning 
warder,  all  this  expressed  in  printed  or  spoken  words 
was  music  to  the  Negro's  ears.  All  of  it  was  repro 
duced  and  magnified  and  dwelt  upon  in  every  Negro 
publication  in  America,  and  quickly  earned  for  its 
author  the  affectionate  title  of  "Our  President,"  "the 
first  since  Lincoln  set  us  free."  His  photograph  be- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     287 

came  a  stock  cut  with  Negro  magazines,  and  its  number 
less  reproductions  were  generally  accompanied  by  some 
endearing  phrase.  And  McKinley's  record  was  for 
gotten  by  the  Negro  before  the  grass  was  green  upon 
his  grave.  It  was  only  resurrected  by  white  men, 
to  prove  that  he  had  made  more  Negro  appointments 
than  the  man  whose  face  and  words  had  suddenly 
become  familiar  in  every  Negro  home  in  the  land. 

It  is  a  plantation  saying  that  a  man  can  do  more 
with  a  Negro  by  talk  and  cajolery  than  by  fair  dealing 
without  indulging  in  palaver.  It  is  one  trait  which 
makes  it  so  difficult  to  do  business  with  the  race  in  a 
business  way.  The  average  plantation  Negro  would 
rather  transact  business  with  a  man  who  will  rob  him 
with  much  fair  speech  than  with  one  who  will  give 
him  a  square  deal  with  few  words.  It  is  said  that  the 
late  Thomas  B.  Reed  once  referred  to  Mr.  Roosevelt 
as  "the  young  man  who  discovered  the  Ten  Command 
ments."  Certainly  no  other  man  of  this  generation 
has  made  so  frequent  use  of  the  common  injunctions 
and  precepts  of  the  Decalogue  in  public  speech.  His 
announcements  in  regard  to  the  Negro  —  "the  door 
of  hope  "  for  example — were  little  more  than  platitudes. 
No  one  was  trying  to  close  "the  door  of  hope"  in  the 
Negro's  face.  There  was  no  such  question  at  issue. 
But  the  phrase  sounded  well,  and  it  immediately  took 
with  the  Negro.  To  his  untutored  mind  the  President 
was  engaged  in  a  fierce  struggle  with  the  South  over 
the  question  of  the  Negro's  "rights."  The  South  had 
been  trying  to  strangle  the  Negro  to  death,  with  Me- 


288     The  American  Race  Problem 

Kinley  in  collusion,  when  like  a  rescuing  knight  Mr. 
Roosevelt  appeared  upon  the  scene.  This  is  no  picture 
of  fancy.  If  anyone  questions  its  accuracy,  let  him 
search  the  files  of  Negro  periodicals  and  papers,  and 
read  the  almost  amazing  evidences  of  the  Negro's 
peculiar  mental  attitude  toward  these  two  men.  If 
Me  Kinley  had  talked  more  about  Negro  rights  and 
opportunities  and  hopes,  even  with  fewer  appointments 
his  memory  would  have  fared  better  at  their  hands.  A 
writer  in  the  leading  coloured  magazine  of  the  country 
declared  that  "After  President  Hayes,  the  Republican 
party  of  William  Me  Kinley  has  done  the  coloured  man 
the  greatest  harm."  The  article  states  that  "President 
Roosevelt  found  us  standing  on  the  ragged  edge  of 
despair."  From  this  position  the  race  was  rescued  by 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  The  "door  of  hope"  declaration  is 
quoted,  and  the  writer  adds  this  comment:  "These 
words  are  full  of  hope  for  the  Negro  and  deadly  miasma 
for  the  Southern  whites."* 

But  the  Negro  was  not  the  only  one  to  thus  peculiarly 
identify  Mr.  Roosevelt  with  the  idea  of  openly  avowed 
and  active  hostility  to  "the  Southern  racial  attitude." 
The  record  of  his  predecessor  was  forgotten,  and  "the 
plain  facts  of  current  history  "  ignored,  in  other  quarters 
than  the  South.  Throughout  the  country,  with  little 
regard  to  party  lines,  he  was  either  hailed  or  accepted, 
as  the  spirit  might  be,  as  the  special  champion  of  the 
Negro.  The  leading  humorous  journal  of  the  country, 


*  "Latest   Phases   of   the   Race   Problem,"   Coloured  American  Magazine, 
Boston,  Feb.  1903,  pp.  245,  246. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     289 

never  politically  identified  with  Mr.  Roosevelt's  party, 
produced  a  cartoon  which  told  the  story  of  the  popular 
mind.  It  was  entitled  "Justice  versus  Prejudice." 
It  shows  the  Emancipation  Statue  of  Lincoln,  in  Wash 
ington.  At  its  base  stands  Mr.  Roosevelt,  facing  a 
Negro,  his  left  hand  on  a  scroll  of  the  XV.  Amendment, 
his  right  hand  on  the  Negro's  shoulder.  The  President 
is  saying  to  the  latter:  "  Lincoln  emancipated  you, 
the  people  gave  you  citizenship  and  I  '11  protect  your 
rights."*  These  cartoons  were  reproduced  as  separates, 
and,  along  with  other  pictures  more  or  less  related,  but 
some  less  innocent  for  harm,  found  their  way  into  the 
Negro's  hands  in  all  sections  of  the  country. f 

Clearly,  the  naked  facts  of  the  records  of  McKinley 
and  Roosevelt  give  us  but  little  light.  For  this  we 
must  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  general  attitude  of  the 
Negro  toward  these  two  men.  This  is  a  difficult  sub 
ject  to  make  clear  to  anyone  who  is  not  himself  familiar 
with  the  large  mass  of  the  Negro's  own  literature, 
the  organs  and  books  of  the  race,  upon  which  we  must 
depend  for  most  of  our  interpretative  material.  We 
should  understand  at  the  outset  that  there  is  a  great 
difference  between  the  classes  into  which  the  Negro  in 

*  Puck,  January  28,  1903. 

t  See  advertisement,  Coloured  American,  Washington,  D.  C.,  May  16,  1903, 
and  later  dates.  Three  or  four  years  ago,  within  five  miles  of  the  plantation 
on  which  this  is  written,  two  white  men  from  a  Middle  Western  state  were 
arrested  for  selling  nude  pictures  to  Negroes.  As  part  of  their  stock,  and  as 
their  "leader,"  was  an  assortment  of  pictures  illustrating  the  White  House 
incident  narrated  here.  Since  the  action  of  the  President  in  the  Brownsville 
affair  a  leading  Southern  Negro  paper  has  said  that  in  consequence  of  such  action 
the  Negroes  "have  turned  the  Roosevelt  social  equality  picture  to  the  wall." 
It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  ramifications  of  the  results  of  an  incident  unimport 
ant  in  itself. 


290     The  American  Race  Problem 

this  country  may  be  roughly  grouped.  These  classes 
are  made  up  on  the  one  hand  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
race,  with  a  constantly  decreasing  percentage  of  illiter 
acy,  and  of  a  large  and  increasing  number  of  more  or 
less  educated,  thinking  and  writing  Negroes  on  the 
other.  In  the  main,  the  first  class  is  found  in  the  South 
and  the  second  in  the  North,  though  this  is  of  course 
by  no  means  an  exact  division.  There  are  thousands 
of  ignorant  and  uneducated  Negroes  in  the  North, 
while  very  many  of  the  best  educated  and  most  forceful 
writers  and  speakers  of  the  race  are  in  the  South. 

Through  the  medium  of  newspapers,  magazines,  and 
books  the  militant  members  are  making  an  impression 
upon  the  steadily  increasing  literate  mass.  When 
we  speak  of  the  Negro's  attitude  toward  Mr.  Roose 
velt,  we  have  in  mind  those  who  have  found  their  voice, 
and  who  are  giving  expression,  in  more  or  less  coherent 
form,  to  the  feelings  and  emotions  by  which  they  are 
swayed.  And  among  the  educated  also  we  must 
realise  the  established  lines.  In  this  second  class 
are  to  be  found  men  and  women  who  in  respect  of 
education,  travel,  and  general  mental  culture,  are  en 
titled  to  rank  with  the  corresponding  group  in  any  race. 
There  are  two  distinct  schools  of  American  Negro 
thought  —  which  in  their  turn  may  be  classed  as  radical 
and  conservative.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  it  is 
not  from  the  highest  types  of  the  radical  school  that 
Roosevelt  has  received  his  vociferous,  emotional  support. 
They  attach  no  undue  significance  to  a  Presidential 
appointment,  and  many  of  them  are  entirely  capable 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      291 

of  discriminatingly  weighing  the  acts  and  words  of 
public  men.  These  could  not  be  led  into  nonsensical 
eulogies  of  a  Republican  President  for  giving  a  Southern 
Negro  an  office,  nor  would  they  go  into  hysterics  over 
a  White  House  dinner.  But  it  is  not  likely  that  they 
represent  a  very  large  element  of  Negroes  —  nothing 
like  as  large  as  that  for  which  the  more  "conservative" 
stand.  The  latter,  with  exceptions,  are  nearer  the  real 
Negro  in  certain  peculiar  racial  characteristics  —  though 
in  its  leadership  neither  group  is  "Negro"  in  more  than 
name.  Save  one  here  and  there,  the  leaders  are  all 
mulattoes,  some  more  white  than  "black"  —hardly 
any  related  to  their  Negro  brethren  further  than 
sentimentally,  and  by  a  more  or  less  attenuated  consan 
guineous  bond.  The  doings  of  the  great  white  world 
about  them  are  translated  to  the  Negro  masses  by 
these  two  groups.  It  is  possible  that  the  group  which 
is  nearer  the  masses  through  a  larger  identity  of  emo 
tional  racial  traits  exercises  the  greater  influence  of 
the  two.  It  is  this  group  with  whose  attitude  toward 
Mr.  Roosevelt  we  are  at  present  concerned.  It  must 
not  be  understood,  however,  that  any  hard  and  fast 
line  is  attempted  to  be  established  here.  Individual 
alignment,  as  well  as  the  differentiating  characteristics 
of  the  two  groups,  are  not  yet  sufficiently  defined  and 
fixed  to  make  this  possible. 

It  seems  at  times  as  if  the  gulf  between  Southern 
white  people  and  most  of  the  leaders  of  educated  Negro 
thought  and  opinion  is  hopelessly  impassable.  Nothing 
seems  clearer  to  the  analyst  of  race  relations  than  that 


292      The  American  Race  Problem 

those  relations  are  best  between  the  higher  groups  of 
white  people  and  the  Negro  masses,  and  most  strained 
between  the  higher  groups  of  Negroes  and  the  white 
race  as  a  whole.  Our  earlier  observation  as  to  the  in 
creasing  complexity  of  race  relations  as  they  approach 
the  plane  of  racial  equality,  applies  here  as  well  as  in 
the  connection  in  which  it  was  used.  The  differences 
of  points  of  view  between  white  people  and  the  higher 
Negro  groups  are  too  pronounced  to  be  misunderstood. 
And  they  are  the  source,  or  at  least  the  evidence,  of 
many  of  the  most  regrettable  manifestations  of  the 
problem. 

The  official  careers  of  Mr.  McKinley  and  Mr.  Roose 
velt,  when  they  touch  the  racial  sectional  line,  illus 
trate  the  practical  results  of  the  operation  of  this  ap 
parently  well  established,  but  exceedingly  unfortunate, 
law  of  race  relations.  So  invariable  is  the  rule,  that 
we  are  practically  safe  in  stating  the  proposition  that 
if  we  are  given  the  attitude  of  the  South  as  a  whole, 
toward  any  specific  act  or  policy  of  national  adminis 
tration,  in  matters  of  racial  or  sectional  concern,  we  may 
predicate  upon  it  the  converse  attitude  of  the  higher 
Negro  groups,  and  vice  versa.*  We  have  seen  how 
easy  it  is  to  confuse  current  history,  in  the  matter  of 
the  respective  McKinley  and  Roosevelt  attitudes  to 
ward  Southern  Negro  appointments.  We  shall  see 
how  easy  it  is  to  understand  why  the  confusion  arose, 

*Thus  in  the  third  year  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  second  administration  we  see 
Southern  papers  speaking  of  his  "changed  attitude  toward  the  Negro  and  the 
race  problem,"  while  Negro  papers  are  denouncing  him  as  "the  worst  enemy 
the  race  ever  had."  It  is  doubtful  if  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  would  admit  the 
slightest  change  of  attitude  on  his  own  part. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     293 

why  in  both  the  white  and  Negro  mind  McKinley  ceased 
to  be  associated  with  such  a  policy,  and  why  Roosevelt 
became  so  closely  identified  with  it,  if  we  but  follow 
the  operation  of  our  law,  if  it  can  be  dignified  by  that 
convenient  and  elastic  term. 

Mr.  McKinley  went  into  office  as  a  result  of  a  hard- 
fought  political  fight  in  1896,  but  one  in  which  sectional 
lines  were  disregarded  to  a  greater  extent,  probably, 
than  in  any  other  election  since  the  war.  If  any  Repub 
lican  President  might  have  been  expected  to  attempt 
to  seize  an  opportunity  to  build  up  a  respectable  Repub 
lican  party  in  the  South,  McKinley  was  that  one,  if 
conditions  were  to  count  for  anything  at  all.  But 
William  McKinley  was  not  a  ''reformer."  He  was  a 
politician,  pure  and  simple,  and  nothing  else — save  an 
honest  and  amiable  man.  He  had  been  nominated  by 
a  well  organised  machine,  of  which  the  Southern  Negro 
was  an  important  part.  When  elected  he  very  naturally 
followed  the  political  policy  which  had  been  that  of 
his  party  since  1868,  as  to  the  Negro  and  Federal  offices 
in  the  South.  Turn  back  to  the  speech*  of  his  Ohio 
friend  and  champion,  and  read  the  open  bid  for  con 
tinued  Negro  allegiance,  and  you  can  see  the  practical 
politics  in  it  all.  Many  of  his  appointments  were  un 
opposed,  just  as  many  of  Roosevelt's  have  been.  But 
others  met  with  as  bitter  denunciation  as  ever  greeted 
any  political  act  of  his  successor.  We  have  mentioned 
the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Georgia  Legislature. 
They  should  be  recalled  if  we  would  grasp  the  signifi- 

*  p.  282. 


294      The  American  Race  Problem 

cance  of  the  subsequent  change  of  attitude.  The 
legislature  declared  that  the  President  had  seen  fit 
to  appoint  a  Negro  postmaster  at  Hogansville  over 
the  protest  of  "90  per  cent,  of  the  property  owners  and 
responsible  citizens"  of  the  town;  that  in  no  other 
section  of  the  country  would  the  best  interests  and 
people  of  a  community  have  been  thus  disregarded ;  that 
on  the  Pacific  slope  he  would  not  dare  appoint  a  China 
man  over  such  a  protest;  nor  would  such  a  protest  be 
ignored  in  any  town  in  the  North.  It  condemned  the 
alleged  attempt  to  kill  the  postmaster  in  question. 

The  resolutions  concluded  as  follows:  "Resolved, 
That  we  deplore  this  and  similar  appointments  as 
exhibitions  of  petty  spite  and  narrow  sectional  hate, 
unworthy  of  the  high  office  of  chief  magistrate  of  this 
great  nation.  Resolved,  That  we  appeal  to  impartial 
public  opinion  to  enter  its  powerful  protest  against 
presidential  appointments  to  office  for  the  manifest 
purpose  of  affronting  and  humiliating  a  community 
of  American  citizens  for  no  other  reason  than  difference 
in  party  affiliation."* 


*  Constitution,  Atlanta,  Ga.,  Oct.  28,  1897,  p.  5.  The  full  text  is  given  under 
the  caption:  "The  Georgia  Legislature  Denounces  President  McKinley." 
Under  date  of  Sept.  18,  1897,  the  Constitution  declared  that  McKinley 's  Negro 
policy  should  warn  the  white  people  of  the  South  to  stand  "closer  together  than 
ever,"  that  more  than  any  other  administration,  McKinley's  had  demonstrated 
"that  Republican  victory  means  Negro  office-holders  and  Negro  domination." 
On  Sept.  23,  1897,  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier  spoke  of  the  "cheap  senti 
mentality"  which  talked  of  "brotherly  love"  and  "the  unity  of  the  country," 
while  "contemptuously  disregarding  the  strongest  and  most  radical  sentiment 
of  the  Southern  States."  Both  these  comments,  in  fact  all  Southern  papers, 
contain  the  suggestive  note  of  the  identity  of  interest  throughout  the  South. 
The  News  and  Courier  says:  "The  one  thing  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  that  these 
instances  of  discrimination  against  the  white  people  of  the  South  do  not  concern 
alone  the  particular  community  against  which  they  are  aimed.  Every  town 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     295 

One  trouble  in  this  country  is  that  in  racial  matters 
the  Southern  people  take  Republican  Presidents  and 
politicians  entirely  too  seriously,  while  the  latter  do 
not  take  the  former  seriously  enough.  It  is  absurd 
to  say  that  McKinley  ever  appointed  a  Negro  to  office 
"for  the  manifest  purpose  of  affronting  and  humiliating 
a  community  of  American  citizens."  It  is  equally  so 
to  charge  that  Roosevelt  dined  with  Booker  T.  Washing 
ton  "for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  defying  Southern 
sentiment,  breaking  down  Southern  social  barriers, 
and  establishing  social  equality."  One  proposition 
is  about  as  silly  as  the  other.  In  the  Hogansville 
appointment  there  was  nothing  more  significant  than 
a  purpose  to  reward  a  "Negro"  politician.  In  the 
Washington  episode,  whatever  the  potential  effect, 
there  was  about  as  much  "deliberation"  as  there  is  in 
most  of  the  actions  of  an  uncertain  and  erratic  Presi 
dent.  The  most  that  can  be  justly  said  of  either  man 
is  that  he  showed  an  entire  disregard  of  the  wishes  and 
sentiments  of  Southern  white  people,  coupled  with  a 
curiously  obtuse  unconcern  for  the  real  interests  of 
the  real  Negro. 

Mark  Twain  says  that  after  one  of  his  early  satirical 
efforts  he  enjoyed  the  unique  distinction  of  being  the 
only  man  on  earth  whom  good  old  Captain  Isaiah 
Sellers  would  actually  "sit  up  nights"  to  hate.  One 


and  city  in  this  section  is  liable  to  the  humiliation  which  has  been  imposed  on 
Hogansville,  Atlanta  and  New  Orleans.  Their  experience  this  year  may  be 
that  of  any  other  place,  or  places,  at  any  time  when  there  is  a  Republican 
administration  at  Washington."  The  Literary  Digest,  Oct.  9,  1897,  and  March 
5,  1898,  contains  resume's  of  Northern  and  Southern  press  comments  on  McKin 
ley 's  policy. 


296      The  American  Race  Problem 

would  imagine  from  some  expressions  of  Southern 
opinion  that  it  was  the  daily  routine  of  Republican 
Presidents  to  spend  part  of  their  time  in  devising  means 
of  "humiliating  and  offending  Southern  people." 
The  trouble  is  that  such  Presidents  do  not  give  enough 
time  to  any  sort  of  consideration  of  Southern  conditions. 
They  do  not  know,  or  will  not  understand,  the  signifi 
cance  of  their  unstudied  acts  to  the  Southern  people 
and  to  the  American  Negro.  Many  Northern  people, 
politicians  and  laymen,  err  too  greatly  on  the  other 
side.  Their  environment  robs  these  acts  of  the  least 
significance  to  them,  and  they  are  too  prone  to  mea 
sure  the  South  by  their  own  yardstick.  There  is  more 
in  such  things  than  is  expressed  in  the  violent  language 
of  occasional  intemperate  newspaper  criticism.  There 
are  many  thousands  of  thoughtful  Southern  people 
who  ponder  these  things  in  their  hearts,  but,  feeling 
deeply,  say  not  a  word.  It  is  not  altogether  wise, 
as  is  so  often  done,  to  dismiss  these  "Southern  out 
bursts"  as  "tempests  in  a  teapot." 

As  long  as  McKinley's  Negro  appointments  were 
the  most  prominent  feature  of  his  "  Southern  policy,"  he 
enjoyed  the  usual  affection  and  esteem  of  Negroes  all 
over  the  country,  and  received  the  average  amount 
of  criticism  and  denunciation  in  the  South.  But  with 
the  approach  of  the  Spanish-American  war  there  came 
a  change.  The  immediate  result  was  to  bring  the 
sections  closer  together.  Mr.  McKinley's  military 
appointments  of  Southern  white  men  effaced  for  the 
time  the  rankling  memory  of  his  civil  appointments 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     297 

of  Southern  Negroes.*  The  country  became  engrossed 
in  other  than  racial  and  sectional  affairs.  In  the  hall 
of  the  Georgia  House  of  Representatives,  where  four 
teen  months  before  he  had  been  denounced  in  almost 
unmeasured  terms,  Mr.  McKinley  gave  utterance  to 
those  sentiments  of  sectional  good  will  and  fraternal 
kindliness  which  seemed  to  place  the  capstone  upon 
the  last  work  of  an  amiable  and  lovable  life.  The 
legislature  which  had  spoken  so  harshly  but  a  short 
while  before,  at  once  eulogised  him  in  terms  strikingly 
in  contrast  to  those  in  which  his  political  actions  had 
been  characterised. 

The  Southern  people  have  their  full  measures  of 
sentiment  —  possibly  more  than  their  share.  There 
has  not  been  a  day  since  1865  when  the  country  could 
not  have  touched  their  inmost  heart,  touched  it  so 
that  great  and  enduring  good  would  have  come  to  us 
all,  black  as  well  as  white,  above  as  well  as  below  the 
line.  No  people  in  history  ever  accepted  more  honestly 
and  manfully  the  hostile  verdict  of  war  than  those 
who  had  raised  the  ill-fated  standard  of  a  second 
English-speaking  republic  in  America.  They  accepted 
as  absolute,  conclusive,  and  irrevocable  the  verdict 
which  sounded  the  doom  of  the  ultimate  rights  of  the 
States  and  destroyed  the  institution  of  slavery.  These 
things  were  the  legitimate  fortunes  of  war,  and  as  such 
they  were  acquiesced  in  without  complaint  and  with 
out  equivocation.  They  were  not  prepared  for  all 

*  But  even  then  he  appointed  an  old  time  Reconstruction  mulatto  politician, 
formerly  of  Mississippi,  paymaster  in  the  Army.  Of  course  there  was  trouble 
the  first  time  his  duties  brought  him  into  contact  with  a  Southern  regiment. 


298      The  American  Race  Problem 

that  followed,  for  the  illegitimate  fruit  of  victory,  and 
they  did  not  accept  it  all.  They  have  not  accepted 
it  yet. 

We  talk  about  the  effect  of  the  association  of  ideas 
upon  the  present  relations  between  the  white  and 
Negro  races  in  the  South.  What  about  its  effect  upon 
the  present  relations  between  the  Southern  States 
and  the  Federal  Government?  Answer  the  question 
fairly.  Could  a  Southern  man,  though  he  were  not 
born  until  1860,  and  though  he  were  the  embodiment 
of  all  that  makes  a  man  —  could  such  a  man  be  elected 
President  of  the  United  States,  all  things  else  being 
equal?  The  South  was  surfeited  with  the  interminable 
eulogies  of  her  "loyalty"  in  1898.  It  seemed  to  dawn 
upon  the  country  as  something  novel,  something  which 
had  just  arrived.  The  Southern  people  have  been 
"loyal"  since  they  laid  down  their  arms  forty  years 
ago.  But  in  the  minds  of  the  rest  of  the  country  it  is 
only  within  recent  years  that  they  have  ceased  to  be 
associated  with  the  idea  of  "treason,"  and  a  foreign 
war  was  required  to  accomplish  the  result.  Even  in 
1898  an  act  of  Congress  was  necessary  to  make  possible 
the  acceptance  by  men  who  had  fought  for  their  States 
of  the  commissions  which  the  President  was  tendering 
amid  the  sentimental  applause  of  the  country 

The  world  does  not  know  how  easily  the  confidence 
and  affection  of  the  South  may  be  won  There  was 
nothing  inconsistent  in  the  two  Georgia  resolutions 
to  which  we  have  referred.  And  the  country  makes 
a  mistake  if  it  assumes  because  of  the  second  that  the 


OF  THE 


ERSITY 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     299 

first  was  mere  brutum  fulmen.  The  two  together 
should  rather  prove  to  the  skeptical  man  that  the 
most  profound  feeling  on  the  first  question  is  not  in 
compatible  with  the  highest  sentiments  of  sectional 
fraternity  and  good  will.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  though  he 
could  never  evoke  Southern  affection  as  McKinley  did, 
has  himself  been  most  kindly  received  in  the  South. 
On  the  occasion  of  one  of  his  extended  visits  this  writer 
carefully  studied  the  utterances  of  more  than  a  dozen 
leading  Northern  Republican  and  Independent  papers. 
On  the  whole  the  impression  made  was  clearly  enough 
that  the  attitude  of  the  South  and  the  meaning  of  its 
reception  of  the  President  were  almost  hopelessly  mis 
understood.  It  was  said  time  and  again  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  won  the  South 's  approval  of  his  acts — 
of  the  things  for  which  she  had  once  reviled  him.  Noth 
ing  is  further  from  the  truth,  and  nothing  is  more 
probable  than  that  a  repetition  of  those  acts  would 
meet  with  criticism  even  more  severe  than  that  which 
they  first  aroused. 

In  the  ratio  in  which  Mr.  McKinley  gained  the 
esteem  and  regard  of  Southern  white  people  he  lost 
that  of  the  groups  of  American  Negro  leaders  to  whom 
we  have  referred.  The  average  man  might  take  issue 
with  this  statement.  But  the  average  man  would 
have  Booker  T.  Washington  in  mind,  while  the  latter 
is  not  included  in  either  of  the  two  groups  as  we  define 
them  here.  He  and  his  policies  are,  rather,  the  subject 
of  controversy  between  the  two.  Though  practically 
identified  with  the  conservative  group,  he  does  not 


300 


The  American  Race  Problem 


discuss  men  and  measures  from  the  political  stand 
point.  He  preaches  the  gospel  of  industrialism  to  the 
masses  of  his  people.  He  does  not  interpret  to  them 
through  magazines  and  newspapers  and  personal  utter 
ance  the  significance  of  incidents  and  policies.  He 
was  himself  the  storm  centre  of  one  such  incident, 
the  significance  of  which  others  are  left  to  interpret 
for  themselves. 

The  opinion  which  we  have  quoted  above,  that  Mc- 
Kinley  did  the  race  more  harm  than  any  President 
since  Hayes,  and  that  Roosevelt  found  the  "Negro" 
"standing  on  the  ragged  edge  of  despair,"  is  one  of  the 
mildest  expressions  which  could  be  used  to  illustrate 
our  position.  The  chief  indictment  against  McKinley 
was  that  he  had  encouraged  "the  Negro-hating  South" 
by  his  conciliating  attitude  during  the  Spanish- American 
war.  Even  death  did  not  shield  him.  His  memory 
has  been  reviled  by  the  foremost  living  American 
"Negro"  editor  in  terms  unworthy  of  respectable 
reproduction.  But  to  the  masses  of  the  race,  the 
Southern  millions  whose  lives  are  lived  in  a  world  of 
their  own,  McKinley  and  Roosevelt  are  not  much  more 
than  names.  To  these  people  "policies"  mean  little, 
whether  national  or  state.  For  them  the  only  meaning 
of  the  Civil  War  was  its  association  with  their  emanci 
pation.  They  cherish  no  abstract  ideas  of  resentment 
on  account  of  the  institution  of  slavery.  They  did  not 
care  how  close  McKinley  and  the  South  drew  to  one 
another.  They  do  not  care  how  far  the  South  and 
Roosevelt  may  draw  apart.  They  do  not  look  to 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     301 

Washington  or  the  President,  but  to  the  white  people 
nearer  home.  And  in  the  main  they  would  go  first 
to  the  man,  or  his  children,  to  whom  they  may  once  have 
"belonged."  This  is  not  the  case  with  the  other  class. 
How  far  these  may  be  able  to  impress  their  ideas  and 
teachings  upon  such  of  the  mass  as  may  come  under 
the  influence  of  their  writings,  cannot  be  told  and 
need  not  be  speculated  upon. 

A   Concrete  Racial  Attitude 

The  following  fairly  illustrates  the  attitude  and 
temper  of  the  writings  which  at  once  express  and 
mould  Negro  thought  in  the  United  States.  The  ex 
tract  is  from  an  editorial  discussion  of  the  candidates 
and  platforms  of  1 904  in  a  prominent  magazine :  ' '  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt  has  made  his  record  on  the  question  of 
human  rights,  and  in  doing  it  provoked  all  the  venom 
which  lurks  habitually  in  the  fangs  of  those  who  believe 
that  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  fought  in  vain  and 
that  Afro-Americans  should  be  slaves  or  pariahs  in 
the  body  politic,  without  the  pale  of  citizenship,  to  be 
governed  by  a  body  of  special  laws  as  infamous  and 
degrading  as  the  slave  code."* 

Here  we  have  the  idea  of  a  perpetual  conflict  between 
North  and  South,  in  which  the  South  is  trying  to  en 
slave  the  Negro.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  "human  rights" 
stand  in  behalf  of  the  Negro  provokes  the  habitual 
venom  of  the  South  whom  he  has  defied  —  just  as  we 

*  Coloured  American  Magazine,  Aug.,  1904,  p.  534. 


302     The  American  Race  Problem 

have  seen  how  his  "words  of  hope  to  the  Negro"  were 
"full  of  deadly  miasma"  for  Southern  white  people. 
According  to  the  carefully  expressed  and  probably 
authoritative  opinion  of  the  Outlook,  in  connection 
with  the  Crum  case,  the  object  of  the  President's  ap 
pointment  was  to  encourage  worthy  "blacks,"  through 
rewarding  the  specially  fit  among  them.  Here  is  the 
point  of  view  of  the  type  to  which  Dr.  Crum  really 
belongs,  the  "rewarding"  of  which  has  about  as  much 
to  do  with  "encouraging"  the  real  Negro  as  it  has  to 
do  with  promoting  kindly  relations  between  the  races. 
It  is  given  as  follows,  in  an  editorial  under  the  caption 
"The  Confirmation  of  Dr.  Crum":  "It  was  only 
after  the  American  people  had  emphatically  and 
almost  unanimously  endorsed  the  nomination  and  re 
buked  the  Senate  for  its  stupid  fear  of  the  champion 
of  the  opposition  to  Negro  culture  and  education, 
that  the  committee  mustered  enough  courage  to  report 
the  nomination  to  the  Senate.  .  .  .  The  coloured 
American  has  witnessed  his  greatest  political  triumph 
in  twenty  years.  This  struggle  was  indeed  one,  not 
of  a  man,  but  of  a  principle.  And  this  time  might  and 
right  were  arrayed  on  one  side  against  arrogant  weakness 
and  prejudice  on  the  other.  ...  In  this  crusade 
against  the  confirmation  of  Crum,  the  South  has  greatly 
weakened  the  growing  regard  which  the  North  has 
here  of  late  entertained  for  it.  Body  and  soul,  it  went 
in  to  oppose  Crum;  with  sleeves  rolled  up  and  a  red 
bandana  around  its  red  neck  to  wipe  the  perspiration 
which  it  anticipated  in  such  a  warm  contest.  .  .  . 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      303 

Under  a  general  of  less  courage  and  honour  than  Roose 
velt,  history  would  read  differently.  It  has  been 
thoroughly  established  that  the  law  recognises  no  man 
by  the  colour  of  his  skin;  but  rather  that  no  drunken 
Democrat  who  revels  in  the  aristocracy  of  his  slave- 
holding  parents,  is  as  good  as  a  coloured  Republican 
of  ability  and  character.  More  coloured  men  should 
be  appointed  to  office  in  the  South.  The  brains  and 
character  of  that  section  are  in  its  black  men."  * 

This  is  the  frankly  avowed  opinion  not  of  some  in 
significant  country  newspaper,  but  of  one  of  the  two 
leading  "Negro"  magazines  in  America  —  formerly 
published  in  Boston  but  now  in  New  York.  We  have 
here  another  inner  glimpse  of  the  so-called  "Negro's" 
point  of  view  of  the  situation  which  elicited  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  letter  on  the  door  of  hope.  From  the  educated 
mulatto  standpoint,  at  least  from  the  group  stand 
point  which  we  are  trying  to  interpret,  these  affairs 
are  all  mere  contests  between  the  South  and  the  Negro, 
with  the  North  and  the  Republican  party  on  the  Negro's 
side.  The  result  is  neither  more  nor  less  to  them  than 
an  augury  of  larger  victories  upon  a  broader  field. 
Whether  or  not  this  apparently  fixed  idea  which  the 
Northern  mulatto  holds  —  of  an  unending  struggle 
between  the  South  and  "the  race,"  also  has  its  roots 
deep  in  the  soil  so  thickly  sown  with  racial  troubles, 
that  of  Reconstruction,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  say. 
We  may  note,  however,  that  there  is  a  difference  be 
tween  the  significance  attached  by  these  people  to 

*  Coloured  American  Magazine,  Feb.,  1905,  pp.  64,  65. 


304     The  American  Race  Problem 

appointments  in  the  two  sections  of  the  country.  One 
of  the  shallowest  of  sectional  retorts  to  Southern  objec 
tion  .to  Negroes  in  Southern  offices  is  that  made  so 
frequently  by  Northern  papers  during  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
administration  —  that  of  reciting  the  occasional  in 
stances  of  such  appointments  in  the  North.*  There  is 
no  connection  between  the  two  things.  The  South  is 
not  concerned  with  such  appointments.  It  is  no 
business  of  hers  if  the  President  appoints  a  Negro  post 
master  at  Boston,  New  York,  or  Chicago.  The  fact 
would  be  no  argument  for,  or  justification  of,  such  an 
appointment  in  New  Orleans  or  Atlanta,  though  this 
is  frequently  superficially  urged.  The  historical  back 
grounds  are  so  different  that  such  appointments  have 
no  such  significance  in  the  North  as  in  the  South. 
Historically,  there  are  abundant  reasons  in  favour  of 
such  appointments  in  the  North,  and  just  as  many 
against  them  in  the  South.  There  is  not  one  logical 
and  fair  ground  for  opposing  them  in  the  former  section, 
and  they  should  there  neither  create  comment,  arouse 
protest,  nor  excite  racial  ill  feeling.  Decidedly  the 
contrary. 

We  are  a  practical  people,  we  Americans — at  least 
we  think  we  are.  Why  not  be  practical  about  the 

*  The  vital  difference  of  actual  attitude  toward  the  Northern  and  Southern 
situations,  respectively,  is  illustrated  in  the  Crum  and  Tylor  cases.  When 
opposition  to  a  coloured  appointee  came  from  South  Carolina  Mr.  Roosevelt 
was  absolutely  uncompromising  in  his  refusal  to  concede  anything  whatever 
to  "Southern  race  prejudice."  When  positive  opposition  developed  in  Ohio 
against  a  coloured  appointee,  Mr.  Roosevelt  at  once  took  a  very  sane,  not  to 
say  "practical,"  view'of  the  situation,  and  provided  a  place  for  the  objectionable 
though  influential  coloured  politician  in  the  Navy  department  at  Washington. 
This  was  a  method  often  adopted  by  Mr.  McKinley  in  placating  Southern  com 
munities,  while  at  the  same  time  caring  for  coloured  appointees. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     305 

gravest  problem  which  vexes  our  national  life  to-day? 
If  we  are  to  appoint  coloured  men  to  office  in  Southern 
States,  regardless  of  local  sentiment  or  protest,  why  not 
learn  something  from  the  real  and  only  beneficiary, 
as  we  have  quoted  him  above,  and  do  it  at  the  face 
value  of  each  transaction?  Why  not  do  it  as  McKinley 
did,  as  a  plain  proposition  in  practical  politics,  and 
let  the  fact  be  advertised  openly  and  above  board,  as 
Grosvenor  did  for  McKinley,  as  a  keeping  of  party 
faith  or  a  bid  for  party  advantage?  Why  attempt 
to  deceive  ourselves  with  the  fanciful  notion  that  by 
appointing  educated  mulattoes  to  office  we  are  "doing 
something  for  the  black  man"?  There  is  something 
difficult  to  comprehend  in  the  serious  declaration  of 
purpose  behind  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Negro  appointments. 
As  given  by  the  Outlook  this  was  "to  do  something 
really  to  help  the  blacks,  through  rewarding  those  who 
by  their  lives  had  won  the  confidence  of  the  whites 
and  who  possessed  high  individual  character."  What 
have  "the  blacks"  to  do  with  Southern  offices,  and 
how  many  are  filled  by  "blacks"  to-day?  And  how 
are  the  "blacks"  to  be  "helped"  by  such  appoint 
ments? 

In  all  the  controversy  over  "Negro  appointments" 
there  have  not  been  a  baker's  dozen  of  Negroes  con 
cerned.  These  appointees  are  almost  invariably 
mulatto  politicians,  frequently  with  less  of  real  interest 
in  the  "blacks"  than  have  the  white  people  among 
whom  the  latter  live.  There  are  scores  of  such  Southern 
appointments  to  which  there  never  was  the  slightest 


306      The  American  Race  Problem 

outspoken  opposition.  The  world  hears  only  of  the 
insignificantly  few  cases  in  which  some  audible  but 
ineffectual  protest  is  made  by  the  white  community. 
These  unopposed  appointments  probably  do  no  harm 
within  themselves.  But  it  passes  belief  that  it  can  be 
seriously  thought  that  such  an  appointment,  when 
bitterly  opposed  and  bitterly  acquiesced  in,  or  even  if 
uncomplainingly  accepted,  can  really  help  the  labouring 
millions  of  the  Negro  people.  Does  it  open  to  them 
new  opportunities,  or  enlarge  existing  ones,  for  im 
proving  the  status  of  themselves  and  their  families? 
Does  it  bring  about  better  feeling  between  themselves 
and  their  white  neighbours?  Does  it  make  the  latter 
more  kindly  disposed  toward  them,  or  more  willing 
to  lend  them  a  helping  hand?  Does  it  make  the 
Negro's  path  less  thorny  or  more  easily  trod?  Above 
all,  does  it  hasten  the  day  when,  as  Booker  T.  Washing 
ton  says,  the  South  will  no  longer  feel  that  at  times 
she  is  still  the  object  of  a  government  of  force?  Does 
it  add  to  the  number  of  those  friendships  which  he 
considers  more  valuable  to  his  race  than  Federal  laws? 
It  seems  to  me  that  he  who  for  some  absurd  and 
fanciful  abstraction  touching  the  "elevation  of  the 
race"  forces  a  political  appointee  upon  an  unwilling 
community,  barters  away  the  now  almost  priceless 
birthright  of  a  whole  people  —  the  birthright  of  peace, 
for  much  less  than  a  mess  of  pottage  for  a  chosen  few. 
He  is  the  truest  friend  of  the  real  Negro  who  contrib 
utes  most  to  sectional  and  racial  harmony  and  good  will. 
It  would  be  well  if  those  who  sit  in  high  places  could 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     307 

finally  realise  that  they  govern  most  wisely  for  the 
weaker  race  when  they  frankly  recognise  the  universal 
and  indisputable  truth  that  in  the  last  analysis  it  is 
the  actual  living  sentiment  of  the  masses  that  most 
largely  determines  the  attitude  of  the  white  race  toward 
the  black.  This  sentiment  cannot  be  altered  by  coer 
cive  action,  nor  can  it  be  disregarded  with  impunity. 
In  dealing  with  the  manifold  problems  of  our  complex 
national  life,  common  sense  is  the  essence  of  wisdom. 
The  greatest  civic  courage,  as  well  as  the  wisest  states 
manship,  will  be  found  to  lie  sometimes  along  the  line 
of  temporary  concession  to  conditions  we  cannot  control. 
The  doubtful  boon  of  a  relation  with,  or  share  in, 
local  administration  of  political  affairs  will  not  be 
gained  or  hastened  for  the  Negro  through  the  medium 
of  Federal  appointments.  In  the  chapter  on  his 
Atlanta  Exposition  address  Booker  T.  Washington 
says:  "My  own  belief  is,  although  I  have  never  before 
said  so  in  so  many  words,  that  the  time  will  come  when 
the  Negro  in  the  South  will  be  accorded  all  the  political 
rights  which  his  ability,  character,  and  material  pos 
sessions  entitle  him  to.  I  think,  though,  that  the 
opportunity  to  freely  exercise  such  political  rights 
will  not  come  in  any  large  degree  through  outside  or 
artificial  forcing,  but  will  be  accorded  to  the  Negro  by 
the  Southern  white  people  themselves,  and  that  they 
will  protect  him  in  the  exercise  of  those  rights."  Even 
if  the  relation  between  Reconstruction  and  present 
conditions  is  a  matter  of  doubt  in  some  minds,  it  ap 
parently  is  clear  to  Booker  T.  Washington.  He  con- 


308      The  American  Race  Problem 

tinues:  "Just  as  soon  as  the  South  gets  over  the  old 
feeling  that  it  is  being  forced  by  foreigners,  or  aliens, 
to  do  something  which  it  does  not  want  to  do,  I  believe 
that  the  change  in  the  direction  that  I  have  indicated 
is  going  to  begin." 

How  long  will  it  be  before  the  South  gets  over  "the 
old  feeling "  of  outside  coercion?  The  answer  depends 
on  forces  and  movements  beyond  the  South 's  control, 
largely  upon  the  common  sense  of  those  in  Federal 
power.  But  one  thing  is  as  certain  as  the  dawning 
of  another  day:  the  approach  of  that  time  will  not  be 
hastened  by  threatening  planks  in  national  platforms; 
by  forcing  upon  an  unwilling  community  a  distasteful 
official;  by  the  punitive  denial  of  the  common  postal 
facilities  of  the  Government  to  a  Southern  town.  It  is 
useless  to  reply  that  these  are  isolated  cases.  Their 
effect  is  like  that  of  an  isolated  case  of  assault.  Here 
white  people  instinctively  draw  closer  together,  pre 
pared  to  make  the  case  of  one  the  concern  of  all.  In 
such  matters  there  are  in  the  South  neither  state,  nor 
county  nor  community  lines.* 

To  return  to  Mr.  Washington.  He  adds:  "Let 
me  illustrate  my  meaning.  Suppose  that  some  months 
before  the  opening  of  the  Atlanta  Exposition  there  had 
been  a  general  demand  from  the  press  and  public 
outside  the  South  that  a  Negro  be  given  a  place  on  the 
opening  programme,  and  that  a  Negro  be  placed  upon 
the  board  of  jurors  of  award.  Would  any  such  recog 
nition  of  the  race  have  taken  place?  I  do  not  think 

*  See  observation  on  Southern  community  of  feeling  in  note  on  p.  294. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     309 

so."*  Here  is  another  illustration.  After  the  Indian- 
ola  affair,  which  would  not  have  occurred  but  for  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  Southern  " referee  system,"  and  which 
could  have  been  straightened  out  with  an  ounce  of  tact, 
the  people  of  that  town  were  compelled  to  devise  their 
own  postal  facilities.  In  doing  so  they  employed  a 
Negro  driver  for  their  private  mail  wagon.  I  collected 
a  number  of  Northern  editorial  efforts  to  convict  the 
white  people  of  the  town  of  almost  criminal  inconsis 
tency  in  thus  engaging  a  Negro  to  assist  in  doing  the 
very  thing  which  they  had  objected  to  having  a  Negro 
do  for  them.  The  essence  of  the  difference  lay  in  the 
respective  relationships  of  the  two  Negroes  to  the 
community.  One  represented  a  voluntary  connection 
of  their  own  creation,  the  other  the  enforced  continuance 
of  a  relation  to  which  they  objected. 

Professor  Dunning  says:  "Seven  unwholesome  years 
were  required  to  demonstrate  that  not  even  the  govern 
ment  which  had  quelled  the  greatest  rebellion  in  history 
could  maintain  the  freedmen  in  both  security  and 
comfort  on  the  necks  of  their  former  masters.  The 
demonstration  was  slow,  but  it  was  effective  and  per 
manent,  "f  We  are  no  longer  confronted  with  the 
extreme  aspect  of  that  question  —  thanks  to  the  thor 
oughness  of  the  demonstration  to  which  Professor 
Dunning  alludes.  But  there  are  other  things  also 
which  the  Government,  with  all  its  power,  cannot  do. 
It  cannot  "solve  the  race  problem,"  nor  determine 


*  "Up  from  Slavery,"  p.  235. 

t  "Civil  War  and  Reconstruction,"  p. 


310      The  American  Race  Problem 

the  status  of  the  Negro,  nor  insure  his  "rights,"  by 
coercive  or  penalising  measures.  If  we  will  hold  in 
mind  the  prediction  of  Professor  Councill  and  the 
words  of  Professor  Dunning,  we  shall  not  have  to  learn 
anew  the  lesson  of  an  experiment  that  failed.  We 
may  realise,  with  Mr.  Washington,  that  whatever  share 
the  Negro  is  destined  to  have  in  the  political  life  of  the 
Southern  states  must  come  as  a  grant  from  the  Southern 
people.  We  need  not  argue  abstractions  and  theo 
ries,  we  would  be  wiser  to  face  and  accept  the  fact. 
If  the  time  which  has  been  wasted  in  America  since 
1865  in  discussing  the  Negro's  abstract  "rights"  had 
been  applied  to  a  non-sectional  effort  at  realising  and 
providing  for  his  real  "needs,"  both  the  Negro  and 
the  country  would  be  better  off  to-day.  But  it  seems 
difficult  for  us  to  realise  that  questions  of  race  are  not 
questions  of  law,  that  problems  of  race  cannot  be  solved 
by  decrees  of  courts.  The  Negroes  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  can  tell  you  just  how  much  a  "civil  rights" 
law  is  worth  in  the  face  of  local  public  sentiment. 

To  return  from  this  digression  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
the  South,  and  the  racial  and  sectional  troubles  upon 
which  we  were  trying  to  find  some  light  from  the  only 
source  worth  considering,  the  Negro  himself,  the  princi 
pal  party  in  interest.  If  we  grant  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
had  no  intention  of  "forcing  the  race  issue  upon  the 
South,"  that  is  about  as  far  as  the  facts  will  warrant 
us  in  going.  That  the  issue  was  brought  to  the  front 
cannot  be  questioned.  No  matter  what  the  President's 
intentions  were.  We  are  not  at  all  concerned  with 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     311 

that  phase  of  the  question.  We  are  interested  in  the 
results  of  his  general  attitude  rather  than  with  any 
consideration  of  motive.  If  we  go  below  the  surface 
at  all  we  realise  how  much  more  there  was  involved  in 
the  question  at  issue  than  could  be  embraced  within  a 
mathematical  statement  of  the  respective  number  of 
Negro  appointments  by  McKinley  and  Roosevelt. 
The  essence  of  the  whole  matter  lies  in  what  Mr.  Roose 
velt  stood  for  in  the  eye  and  mind  of  the  Negro.  And 
this  is  not  difficult  to  discover. 

In  a  discriminating  essay  on  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Judge 
Robert  H.  Terrell,  the  husband  of  the  most  distinguished 
woman  now  identified  with  the  Negro  race,  writes  as 
follows:  "In  the  annals  of  events  the  muse  of  history 
will  tell  how  this  remarkable  man,  this  advocate  of 
universal  liberty,  strove  to  make  effective  and  to  bring 
to  a  triumphant  issue  all  that  his  great  predecessor 
and  prototype,  Abraham  Lincoln,  planned  for  the 
people  whose  chains  he  broke.  We  are  too  close  to 
his  efforts  to  do  them  justice  now.  The  influence, 
however,  of  his  activity  in  behalf:  of  a  race  young  in 
opportunity,  and  without  prestige  in  any  particular 
walk  of  life,  has  already  made  a  profound  impression 
upon  the  thoughtful  men  of  our  day  and  generation." 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  Negro  appointments 
is  then  touched  upon,  and  it  is  stated  that  he  began 
to  take  interest  in  the  matter  when  he  first  became 
connected  with  the  Civil  Service  Commission.  We 
are  told  that  on  his  motion  examinations  were  held 
in  the  larger  Southern  cities.  ' '  Notices  were  so  given  of 


312     The  American  Race  Problem 

these  tests  that  coloured  young  men  of  scholastic  train 
ing  eagerly  sought  an  opportunity  to  take  them.  Hun 
dreds  of  them  passed  the  examinations,  many  at  the 
head  of  the  lists.  Through  the  influence  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt  large  numbers  of  them  were  designated  for  appoint 
ments."  Mr.  Terrell  says  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  "watched 
with  unusual  solicitude  the  career  of  this  new  element 
of  coloured  men,  the  products  of  post-bellum  days," 
and  that  "their  efficiency  was  commended  in  terms 
of  the  warmest  praise"  in  the  report  of  the  Commission 
for  1890.*  Mr.  Terrell  says  that  he  wishes  to  show 
that  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  said  and  done  about  "col 
oured  men  in  office"  is  "no  new  propaganda  so  far  as 
he  is  concerned."  "When  this  great  and  good  and 
just  man  writes  of  the  door  of  hope  for  the  coloured 
American,  he  is  simply  reiterating  a  doctrine  which  he 
has  always  cherished,  and  one  altogether  consistent 
with  his  deep  sense  of  right  and  equity,  "f 

And  yet  how  many  times  are  we  told  that  the  posi 
tion  of  the  South,  in  claiming  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had 
revived  the  "race  question"  to  a  greater  extent  than 
any  other  President  in  recent  years,  was  wholly  absurd 
and  untenable.  And  for  proof  we  were  furnished  with 

*  Under  the  caption  "Benefit  to  the  Coloured  Race,"  the  report  states  that 
an  excellent  feature  of  the  Southern  examinations  "has  been  the  elimination 
not  only  of  the  questions  of  politics  and  religion  but  of  the  question  of  race." 
The  chance  to  enter  Government  service  on  their  merits  is  said  to  have  been  a 
boon  to  "these  coloured  men  and  women."  It  is  also  said  that  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  coloured  people  receive  appointments  than  under  the  patronage 
system.  —  Report  of  Civil  Service  Commission,  July  i,  1890,  June  30,  1891,  p. 
6.  Report  signed  by  all  three  Commissioners.  Note  Grosvenor's  speech  in  this 
connection. 

t  "Theodore  Roosevelt,"  Robert  H.  Terrell,  Coloured  American  Magazine, 
August,  1904,  PP.  542-544- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     313 

the  "facts"  of  his  and  McKinley's  Negro  appointments. 
Evidently  then,  there  must  have  been  something  more 
than  Mr  Roosevelt's  appointments  operating  upon  the 
processes  of  the  American  "  Negro  "  mind.  One  enthu 
siast  declares  that  "few  men  in  any  age  have  ever  been 
adored  by  a  people  as  President  Roosevelt  is  adored 
by  the  Afro- American  people,  and  few  men  ever  so 
fully  deserved  such  honour  as  they  would  pay  him."* 
It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  multiply  evidence  of  the 
extravagant  adoration  in  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
at  one  time  held  by  a  large  group  of  so-called  Negroes. 
It  would  be  better  to  attempt  a  further  search  for  the 
cause  of  such  adulation. 

Social  Equality 

We  have  alluded  above  to  the  operation  of  a  racial 
trait  to  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  unconsciously  but  strongly 
appealed  by  his  characteristic  habit  of  speech.  There 
is  another  which  has  played  an  equally  important  part 
in  influencing  Negro  attitude.  This  is  the  tendency 
to  magnify  and  exalt  out  of  all  true  proportion  matters 
of  personal  concern,  and  to  distort,  as  well  as  magnify, 
their  personal  significance.  I  am  aware  that  one  skates 
on  thin  ice  who  touches  the  "social  equality"  aspect 
of  the  race  problem,  much  less  attempts  an  interpre 
tation  of  the  significance  of  the  Washington-Roosevelt 
dinner  episode.  This  writer  has*iiever  concerned  him 
self  over  either  racial  or  sectional  hysteria,  whether 

*  R,  C.  Murray  in  Coloured  American  Magazine,  Dec,,  1905,  p.  712. 


314     The  American  Race  Problem 

North  or  South.  He  is  interested  in  all  the  varying 
phenomena  of  race  relations,  whether  elementary  or 
complex,  whether  manifested  in  this  country  or  else 
where.  And  to  the  serious  student  of  such  phenomena, 
one  of  the  most  peculiarly  interesting  to  be  found  any 
where  in  recent  years  was  this  inherently  insignificant, 
unofficial  White  House  incident.  Trivial  as  it  was  in 
itself,  in  the  relations  between  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the 
South,  as  established  by  the  latter,  and  in  those  between 
the  Negro  and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  established  by  the 
former,  it  explains  more  than  any  other  group  of  factors 
which  must  be  considered  in  this  connection.  Appoint 
ments,  per  se,  did  not  control  on  either  side.  Mr.  Mc- 
Kinley  made  more  than  Mr.  Roosevelt.  Personality, 
as  far  as  the  South  was  concerned,  must  certainly  be 
taken  into  account,  but  it  was  not  half  the  story.  Roose 
velt's  "Southern  referee  system,"  which  will  be  noticed 
later,  is  also  responsible  for  its  share  of  complications. 
With  both  the  South  and  the  Negro,  the  "manner"  of 
Roosevelt's  appointments,  impossible  of  definition 
though  it  is,  played  a  most  important  part.  To  this 
we  have  called  attention  above. 

I  have  kept  in  touch  with  white  public  opinion, 
North  and  South,  on  the  race  problem  attitude  of  both 
McKinley  and  Roosevelt,  and  have  studied  carefully, 
and  I  believe  honestly,  Negro  opinion  on  both,  as 
expressed  publicly  through  group  leadership,  and  as  I 
could  learn  it  by  personal  discussion.  And  there  is 
left  little  room  in  my  mind  for  doubt  that  without  the 
background  of  that  Wednesday  dinner  at  the  White 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     315 

House  the  canvas  which  subsequently  absorbed  and 
reflected  such  lurid  colours  would  have  given  us  an 
almost  lifeless  picture,  as  tame  and  dull  as  the  usual 
afterglow  of  Southern  appointments  by  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
predecessors.  That  episode  tinged  for  the  South  every 
subsequent  act  of  his  in  which  the  Negro  was  concerned. 
It  is  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  discuss  the  Southern 
attitude  toward  "social  equality."  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  amid  the  confusion  of  ideas  as  to  just  what  is 
required  to  constitute  the  relation,  the  one  clear  fact 
is  that  the  breaking  of  bread  between  the  races  upon 
equal  terms  is  its  ultimate  and  positive  expression. 
That  is  the  one  unpardonable  violation  of  the  Southern 
racial  code.  We  shall  not  stop  to  consider  here  the 
wisdom,  necessity,  expediency,  or  justice  of  this  state 
of  public  opinion.  We  need  concern  ourselves  only 
with  the  facts  as  we  find  them  before  us.  This  much 
we  may  say:  Within  the  sphere  of  her  own  peculiar 
environment  any  position  assumed  by  the  South  as  a 
development  of  her  racial  difficulties  cannot  be  success 
fully  attacked  or  criticised  from  without.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  world  without  is  not  to  be  dictated  to 
and  should  not  be  undiscriminatingly  criticised  by  the 
South  in  matters  which  are  no  proper  concern  of  the 
Southern  people.  If  any  man  outside  the  South  see 
fit  to  do  those  things  which  in  the  South  are  by  public 
opinion  not  permitted  to  be  done,  he  is  not  to  be  criti 
cised  by  Southern  people  for  his  acts.  The  South 
cannot  arrogate  to  herself  a  censorship  of  the  opinions 
or  tastes  which  govern  the  social  intercourse  of  people 


316     The  American  Race  Problem 

beyond  her  jurisdiction.  On  this  ground  her  criti 
cism  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  for  violating  a  social  canon 
which  she  has  erected  for  the  conduct  of  the  relations 
of  her  own  people,  will  not  be  justified  by  the  public 
opinion  of  the  world  or  the  country  at  large.  In  so 
far  as  such  criticism  was  based  upon  an  honest  belief 
in  the  ill  effects  of  the  action  upon  conditions  with 
which  she  was  intensely  concerned,  she  stands  upon 
more  tenable  ground.  It  is  in  this  aspect  of  the  case, 
the  Negro's  own  attitude  toward  the  incident  in  ques 
tion,  that  we  are  interested  here. 

The  American  Negro  has  had  no  truer  friend  that 
the  late  William  H.  Baldwin.  The  country  has  found 
in  no  other  man  a  better  balanced  combination  of  phil 
anthropy  and  good  works  with  the  saving  grace  of  com 
mon  sense.  He  gives  his  point  of  view  in  the  following 
statement:  "It  may  be  proper  for  me  to  say  that  my 
observations  are  those  of  a  New  Englander,  with  all 
the  inherited  tendencies  and  sympathies  of  that  people, 
supplemented  by  three  years  of  active  and  intimate 
relations  with  the  whites  and  blacks  of  the  South,  and, 
all  told,  about  six  years'  service  as  a  trustee  of  the 
Tuskegee  Institute."*  With  these  qualifications,  he 
thus  expressed  his  opinion  on  "the  social  question": 
"Whoever  lives  in  the  South  for  a  year  or  more  is 
inclined  to  reach  the  same  conclusion  as  the  intelli 
gent  Southerner  on  the  social  question. 
Social  recognition  of  the  Negro  by  the  white  is  a  simple 


*  Proceedings  of  Second  Capon  Springs  Conference  for    Education  in  the 
South,  1899,  p.  93. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     317 

impossibility,  and  is  entirely  dismissed  from  the  minds 
of  the  white,  and  by  the  intelligent  Negroes.  There 
is  no  need  of  social  recognition.  It  is  largely  demanded 
by  sentimental  theorists,  who  would  be  the  last  to 
grant  such  recognition  if  they  were  to  live  with  the 
problem.  The  ordinary  Negro  would  have  as  much 
difficulty  in  obtaining  a  room  and  board  in  a  hotel 
in  Boston  as  he  would  have  in  the  city  of  Atlanta. 
Social  recognition,  for  this  generation  at  least,  is  denied; 
properly  so,  naturally  so.  Any  attempt  to  force  it 
merely  complicates  the  situation  and  injures  the  cause 
of  the  black  man."* 

The  last  observation  is  a  clear  statement  of  the  ill 
effects,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Negro's  interests, 
of  attempting  to  "force"  "social  equality."  The 
injury  to  "the  cause  of  the  black  man"  follows  as  a 
natural  and  inevitable  consequence  of  the  irritation 
to  the  white.  The  situation  is  just  as  much  compli 
cated  by  acts  which  both  the  Negro  and  the  white  man 
interpret  as  such  attempts  as  Mr.  Baldwin  warns 
against,  as  by  acts  which  are  really  meant  to  be  such 
attempts.  Under  the  influence  of  feeling  the  mind 
does  not  always  draw  nice  distinctions  between  the 
apparent  and  the  real.  The  necessity  for  careful  con 
duct  and  prudent  policy  on  the  part  of  those  whose 
very  position  clothes  their  simplest  acts  with  peculiar 
and  individual  significance,  cannot  be  too  constantly 
kept  in  view  and  acted  upon.  Whether  the  South 
was  right  or  wrong,  wholly  or  in  part,  in  its  apprehen- 

*  Second  Capon  Springs  Conference,  1899,  p.  98. 


318     The  American  Race  Problem 

sions  of  the  effect  of  this  incident  in  complicating  its 
situation,  is  a  matter  for  individual  opinion  to  determine 
for  itself.  As  to  one  factor  in  shaping  such  effect,  how 
ever,  we  need  not  be  in  doubt.  This  is  the  significance 
of  the  incident,  as  interpreted  by  many  of  the  men 
who  through  their  utterances  are  to-day  moulding 
and  directing  American  Negro  thought.  The  most 
striking  feature  of  the  situation  which  the  incident 
created  was  the  identity  of  opinion  between  these  men 
and  Southern  white  men  on  this  matter  of  understood 
and  accepted  significance  and  meaning  —  aside  from 
the  question  of  intent. 

The  volume  of  evidence  as  to  the  significance  immedi 
ately  attached  to  this  episode  is  measured  only  by  the 
number  of  Negro  newspapers  and  magazines  published 
in  this  country  at  the  time.  It  may  be  found  also  in 
the  expressions  of  Negroes  in  South  Africa  and  the 
West  Indies.  One  of  these  leading  papers,  published 
in  Washington,  had  the  following  notice  of  the  incident 
under  the  caption,  "President  Roosevelt.  The  Lie 
Nailed  that  He  Is  Opposed  to  the  Negro.  The  First 
President  to  Entertain  a  Negro.  Booker  T.  Washington 
Dined":  "The  many  false  reports  that  have  been 
circulated  that  President  Roosevelt  was  opposed  to 
the  Negro  have  been  eliminated  by  the  many  kind  acts 
that  he  has  done  prior  to  his  election,  and  while  he 
was  Vice-President,  and  since  he  has  been  President. 
While  Governor  of  New  York  a  distinguished  coloured 
singer  was  denied  lodging  in  Albany,  New  York,  in  one 
of  the  hotels.  The  circumstances  having  reached  Mr. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     319 

Roosevelt  he  went  in  person  and  invited  the  citizen  to 
his  residence,  where  he  gave  him  lodging.  When  he 
assumed  the  office  of  Vice-President  his  first  act  was  to 
appoint  a  coloured  man  an  executive  messenger  against 
the  protest  of  certain  officials.  Since  he  assumed  the 
office  of  President  he  entertained  Professor  Booker  T. 
Washington  in  the  Executive  Mansion  on  last  Wednes 
day  evening.  The  first  President  of  the  United  States 
to  entertain  a  coloured  man.  These  many  acts  of 
recognition  of  the  Negroes  show  that  President  Roose 
velt  is  a  man."* 

In  the  next  issue  of  the  same  paper  the  subject  is 
discussed  at  some  length,  and  a  number  of  extracts 
from  Southern  papers  are  given:  "The  Southern 
Democrats,"  we  are  told,  "hoped  and  expected  to 
blarney  the  President  so  as  to  continue  unrestrained 
in  their  wicked  reign  of  terror  and  proscription  against 
the  coloured  race.  They  are  shocked,  boiled,  smitten, 
and  exasperated.  In  one  fell  swoop  Mr.  Roosevelt 
has  smashed  to  smithereens  their  fondest  idol.  They 
are  fuming  with  dire  imprecations  against  him,  and 
all  because  he  took  a  meal  of  victuals  with  a  coloured 
gentleman  who  had  been  entertained  by  the  nobility 
of  England,  and  the  best  people  of  America. "f 

Among  the  Southern  editorials  quoted  in  this  issue, 
two  or  three  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  point  contained 
in  Mr.  Baldwin's  warning  on  the  subject:  "Roosevelt 
has  done  an  injury  to  the  Negroes  of  the  whole  country, 


*  Washington  Bee,  Oct.  19,  1901. 
t  Idem.,  Oct.  26,  1901. 


320      The  American  Race  Problem 

especially  those  in  the  South,  and  has  damaged  the 
wisest  and  most  useful  Negro  in  America."  "The 
people  of  the  South,  who  had  warmed  up  to  the  Presi 
dent,  have  had  their  feelings  rasped.  In  irritating 
the  South  he  has  lost  power  for  good."  "The  President 
could  not  have  committed  an  act  not  actually  unlaw 
ful  that  would  have  excited  as  much  popular  feeling 
or  aroused  as  much  public  attention.  Nobody  knows 
what  he  will  do  next.  He  has  seriously  fallen  from 
popular  favour  in  the  Southern  states."  The  same 
issue  of  the  Bee  contained  a  cut  of  Mr.  Washington 
with  this  legend:  "Professor  Booker  T.  Washington. 
Dined  by  President  Roosevelt  —  No  Colour  Line  in  the 
White  House  —  An  Object-lesson  for  the  South."  In 
its  issues  for  several  weeks  the  affair  was  treated  in  the 
same  vein.  In  one  it  was  declared  that  "that  Roose 
velt-Booker  Washington  episode  still  remains  a  big 
thorn  in  the  side  of  Southern  chivalry,  and  the  endorse 
ment  of  the  President's  course  by  the  American  Mission 
ary  Society,  Union  Veterans'  Union  and  other  organisa 
tions,  and  the  Northern  press,  only  adds  to  the  dis 
tress.  .  .  .  The  late  elections  do  not  show  a  great 
reaction  in  the  political  world  on  account  of  the  cele 
brated  dinner  and  prove  that  a  fair  recognition  of 
the  merit  of  coloured  men  does  not  detract  from  the 
power  and  popularity  of  the  Republican  party."* 

The  general  line  of  discussion  in  the  coloured  press 
was  the  same  throughout  the  country.  There  was 
the  same  magnifying  of  the  affair  to  the  proportions  of 

*  Washington  Bee,  Nov.  9,  igoi. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     321 

a  set  White  House  function;  the  same  popular  and 
enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  President  for  thus 
'recognising  the  race";  the  same  "no  colour  line  in 
the  White  House,"  with  the  same  resulting  "object- 
lesson  for  the  South";  the  same  "smashing"  of  the 
Southern  social  equality  "idol."  The  sameness  might 
be  wearisome,  but  it  possessed  an  unmistakable  signi 
ficance  for  such  as  could  read  as  they  ran.  Even 
from  Haiti  there  has  come  a  tribute  to  the  Pres 
ident  for  his  "stand  for  the  race."  An  author  in 
that  distracted  republic,  a  M.  Firmin,  has  written  a 
volume  on  Mr.  Roosevelt.*  A  coloured  reviewer  in 
this  country  says:  "We  shall  of  course  not  be  sur 
prised  to  find  this  Negro  statesman  warmly  praising 
the  President  for  the  Booker  Washington  dinner  episode, 
for  the  "square  deal"  doctrine,  and  for  his  staunch 
declaration  against  closing  the  door  of  hope  and  of 
opportunity  to  the  aspirations  of  his  coloured  fellow 
citizens.  Such  doctrines  and  declarations  make  a 
very  natural  and  congenial  appeal  to  the  admiration 
of  Negroes  the  world  over."f 

Not  all  the  appointments  made  by  McKinley  or  prom 
ised  by  Grosvenor  could  have  won  for  the  former 
any  such  universal  and  fulsome  praise  as  was  bestowed 
upon  Mr.  Roosevelt.  We  have  ventured  the  opinion 
that  the  dinner  episode  had  more  to  do  with  this  storm 
of  applause  than  most  of  us  imagine.  Suppose  we 
glance  at  the  connection  and  see  if  there  is  any  logical 


*  "M  Roosevelt,  President  des  Etats-Unis  et  la  Republique  d'  Haiti." 

t  "Roosevelt and Hayti,"  F.R.  Steward,  Voice  of  the  Negro,  June  1906,  p.  435. 


322 


The  American  Race  Problem 


background  for  the  feeling  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  stirred 
in  a  greater  degree  than  had  been  done  by  any  man 
who  had  gone  before  him. 

He  who  undertakes  to  fathom  human  conduct,  and 
ventures  to  assign  motives  and  reasons  for  the  actions  of 
his  fellow  men,  engages  in  a  difficult  and  dangerous 
enterprise,  provided  he  has  either  a  name  to  make 
or  a  reputation  to  lose.  Nothing  is  simpler,  and  noth 
ing  exacts  less  of  honest  mental  effort,  than  to  indulge 
in  sweeping  generalisations  upon  the  causes  behind 
the  conduct  of  others.  The  human  element  enters 
so  largely  into  our  own  motives  that  our  judgments 
upon  those  of  others  are  too  often  of  no  real  interpre 
tative  value.  If  such  conduct  is  displeasing  to  us, 
or  in  any  way  is  inimical  to  our  interests,  it  is  human 
to  condemn  it,  and  to  ascribe  it  to  unworthy  motives. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  it  appeals  to  us,  or  pleases  us, 
or  redounds  to  our  good,  we  are  quite  apt  to  attribute 
to  it  the  mainspring  of  a  very  proper  and  noble  im 
pulse.  This  is  particularly  apt  to  be  true  when  we 
have  the  presence  of  a  complicating  racial  factor. 
When  a  member  of  either  the  white  or  Negro  race  in 
this  country  attempts  a  study  of  the  impulses  and 
motives  of  the  other,  he  is  quite  likely  to  hasten  to 
conclusions  from  superficial  observation,  or  make 
deductions  as  to  the  race  as  a  whole  from  the  more  or 
less  accurately  noted  conduct  of  a  few  of  its  members.* 

*  The  two  things  this  writer  most  wishes  in  this  connection  are,  first  to  avoid 
this  pitfall  of  shallow  controversialism,  and,  second,  to  keep  the  record  clear 
as  to  his  own  animus.  I  have  studied  the  problems  of  race  relations  long 
enough  and  broadly  enough  for  the  subject  to  have  become  saturated  with  a 
thoroughly  impersonal  interest  for  me.  I  follow  with  as  close  attention  the 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     323 

In  the  Southern  white  man's  disapproval  of  the 
particular  incident  before  us,  and  in  his  attitude  on  the 
general  subject,  the  Northern  white  man  and  the  Negro 
usually  read  race  hatred,  race  prejudice  in  its  lowest 
sense,  barbarous  social  standards,  a  desire  to  humiliate 
the  Negro,  and  so  forth.  In  the  incident  itself,  and  in 
the  attitude  of  the  Northern  press  and  the  educated 
Negro  toward  it,  the  Southern  white  man  is  likely  to 
read  an  effort,  or  desire,  to  establish  "social  equality" 
between  the  races.  In  fact  there  is  a  deeper  meaning 
than  either  of  these  in  the  attitude  of  both  the  Southern 
white  man  and  the  educated  Negro.  The  case  of  the 
Northern  white  man  is,  in  the  main,  a  very  natural 
inability  to  reach  the  true  inwardness  of  the  situation, 
to  sift  the  few  sound  grains  from  the  mass  of  chaff. 
It  will  not  be  questioned  that  there  are  individual  white 
men  whose  attitude  toward  the  Negro  is  dictated  by 
"race  hatred"  pure  and  simple.  It  is  equally  true 
that  there  are  some  educated  Negroes  who  personally, 
for  themselves,  desire  "social  equality,"  as  that  term 
is  commonly  understood.  But  these  individuals  are  an 
insignificant  and  negligible  quantity  in  the  masses  of 


problems  which  confront  the  English  colonists  in  Natal,  or  those  incident  to  the 
attempted  adjustment  of  the  native  question  in  the  grant  of  responsible  govern 
ment  to  the  Boer  colonies,  or  the  problems  which  the  native  in  politics  presents 
at  the  Cape,  as  I  do  others  nearer  home.  The  problem  of  racial  contact  between 
the  white  man  and  the  black  is  a  world  problem  to  my  mind,  and  I  believe 
that  some  day  it  will  be  generally  recognised  as  such.  The  problem  of  inter 
preting  the  fundamental  causes  behind,  and  the  far  reaching  significance  of, 
the  Ethiopian  movement,  as  inaugurated  and  directed  by  Mokane,  Duane, 
Mazimba  and  others,  is  equally  as  interesting  as  that  of  interpreting  the  causes 
and  significance  of  minor  racial  incidents  and  movements  in  our  own  country. 
But  here  we  are  attempting  the  one  with  which  we  are  more  immediately  con 
cerned. 


324      The  American  Race  Problem 

either  race.  We  are  not  concerned  here  with  the 
attitude  of  the  white  race  at  all.  And  we  may  dismiss 
from  consideration  the  great  mass  of  Negroes,  both 
North  and  South.  Social  equality  for  them  has  no 
earthly  meaning.  It  is  a  concept  which  their  minds 
do  not  grasp,  even  in  its  simplest  form.  They  do  not 
even  think  about  it.  It  is  not  possible  to  establish  any 
logical  connection  between  "social  equality"  and 
criminal  assault  —  and  the  latter  crime  is  not  com 
mitted  by  educated  Negroes.  When  I  use  the  term 
"educated"  I  do  not  mean  the  education  which  is 
limited  to  the  ability  to  read  and  write.  I  am  referring 
here  to  those  race  groups  which  contain  leaders  of 
positive  force  and  ability,  men  of  activity  and  deter 
mination.  These  are  editors  of  newspapers  and  maga 
zines,  lecturers,  lawyers,  teachers,  ministers,  authors 
of  books  and  pamphlets,  contributors  to  the  current 
periodical  and  permanent  literature  of  this  country 
and  England.  From  such  men  and  women  it  would  be 
possible  to  quote  numerous  isolated  clean  cut,  unequi 
vocal  declarations  which  might  be  construed  as  mere 
advocacy  of  "social  equality,"  per  se.  But  this  would 
miss  the  mark.  If  we  accepted  such  declarations  at 
their  face  value  we  would  be  grasping  at  the  shadow 
and  letting  the  substance  go.  They  mean  more  than 
appears  upon  the  surface,  more,  probably,  than  even 
most  of  their  authors  fully  comprehend. 

In  the  leading  Negro  school  journal  in  this  country, 
the  organ  of  the  oldest  coloured  industrial  school,  we 
may  find  as  clear  a  statement  of  the  truer  meaning  and 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     325 

significance  of  real  "social  equality"  to  the  Negro 
race  as  it  would  be  possible  to  frame.  It  is  from  the 
pen  of  Professor  Kelly  Miller.  His  suggestion  as  to 
the  inevitableness  of  "frictional  problems"  between 
widely  different  races  is  also  worthy  the  thought  alike 
of  the  dilettante  who  declares  there  is  no  problem, 
and  of  the  optimistic  enthusiast  who  constantly 
reads  its  "solution"  in  the  execution  of  some  favourite 
curative  programme.  The  author's  position  and  name 
should  commend  his  opinion  to  the  thoughtful  con 
sideration  of  all  students  of  the  question. 

He  says:  "Where  two  races  of  widely  different 
corporal  peculiarities  and  cultivated  qualities  are 
brought  into  contact,  serious  f fictional  problems  in 
evitably  arise.  The  difficulty  of  adjustment  will  be 
greatly  aggravated  if  the  prevailing  social  scheme  be  of 
individualistic  rather  than  communistic  type.  Moham 
medanism  is  superior  to  Christianity,  the  Catholic  to  the 
Protestant  sect,  in  effective  control  over  the  prejudice 
and  rancour  of  race.  There  is  less  race  conflict  in  the 
Mohammedan  than  in  the  Christian  world;  albeit 
the  disciples  of  the  great  prophet  still  foster  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery.  The  Koran  demands  conformity 
to  the  faith  but  it  is  indifferent  to  the  ethnological 
aspect  of  the  adherent.  This  is  also  true,  though  per 
haps  in  a  less  degree,  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But 
not  so  with  the  Protestant  Teuton.  With  him  blood 
is  not  only  thicker  than  water,  but  its  spissitude  passes 
that  of  knowledge,  culture,  and  the  Christian  graces. 
The  American  Negro  may  speak  the  same  language, 


326      The  American  Race  Problem 

conform  to  the  same  institutions,  and  adopt  the  same 
mode  of  religious  worship  as  the  rest  of  his  fellow-men, 
but  it  avails  him  nothing  in  the  scale  of  social  eligi 
bility,  which  is  the  one  determinative  test  of  all  true 
equality.  The  political,  civil,  and  industrial  disabili 
ties  under  which  the  Negro  labours  are  but  the  in 
evitable  outcome  of  the  social  fiction  which  divides 
the  races.  Without  social  equality,  which  the  Teuton 
is  sworn  to  withhold  from  the  darker  races,  no  other 
form  of  equality  is  possible.  The  difference  between 
the  Negro  in  Constantinople  and  Chicago,  in  Rio  Ja 
neiro  and  Baltimore,  in  Havana  and  Philadelphia,  is  a 
concrete  illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  principle  above 
set  forth."* 

There  is  a  somewhat  similar  vein  of  thought  running 
through  some  of  the  writings  of  another  eminent  man 
identified  with  the  race,  Dr.  W.  E.  B.  DuBois.  As 
a  suggestive  and  fairly  typical  specific  expression,  we 
may  select  the  following,  from  a  significant  and  well 
tempered  address:  "It  is  hardly  necessary  for  me  to 
add  to  this  very  much  in  regard  to  the  social  contact 
between  the  races.  Nothing  has  come  to  replace  that 
finer  sympathy  and  love  between  some  masters  and 
house  servants,  which  the  radical  and  more  uncom 
promising  drawing  of  the  colour  line  in  recent  years 
has  caused  almost  completely  to  disappear.  In  a 
world  where  it  means  so  much  to  take  a  man  by  the 
hand  and  sit  beside  him;  to  look  frankly  into  his  eyes 


*"The  Modern  Land  of  Goshen,"  Kelly  Miller,  Southern  Workman,  Nov. 
igoo,  pp.  601,  602. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     327 

and  feel  his  heart  beating  with  red  blood  —  in  a  world 
where  a  social  cigar  or  a  cup  of  tea  together  means 
more  than  legislative  halls  and  magazine  articles  and 
speeches,  one  can  imagine  the  consequences  of  the 
almost  utter  absence  of  such  social  amenities  between 
estranged  races,  whose  separation  extends  even  to 
parks  and  street  cars.  Here  there  can  be  none  of  that 
social  going  down  to  the  people;  the  opening  of  heart 
and  hand  of  the  best  to  the  worst,  in  generous  acknowl 
edgment  of  a  common  humanity  and  a  common  des 
tiny.  On  the  other  hand,  in  matters  of  simple  alms 
giving,  where  there  be  no  question  of  social  contact, 
and  in  the  succour  of  the  aged  and  sick,  the  South,  as  if 
stirred  by  a  feeling  of  its  unfortunate  limitations,  is 
generous  to  a  fault.  The  black  beggar  is  never  turned 
away  without  a  good  deal  more  than  a  crust,  and  a 
call  for  help  for  the  unfortunate  meets  quick  response. 
I  remember,  one  cold  winter,  in  Atlanta,  when  I  re 
frained  from  contributing  to  a  public  relief  fund  lest 
Negroes  should  be  discriminated  against;  I  afterward 
inquired  of  a  friend:  'Were  any  black  people  receiv 
ing  aid?'  'Why,'  said  he,  'they  were  all  black.'  And 
yet  this  does  not  touch  the  kernel  of  the  problem. 
Human  advancement  is  not  a  mere  question  of  alms 
giving,  but  rather  of  sympathy  and  cooperation  among 
classes  who  would  scorn  charity.  And  here  is  a  land 
where,  in  the  higher  walks  of  life,  in  all  the  higher 
striving  for  the  good  and  noble  and  true,  the  colour 
line  comes  to  separate  natural  friends  and  co-workers, 
while  at  the  bottom  of  the  social  group,  in  the  saloon, 


328      The  American  Race  Problem 

the  gambling  hell,   and  the  bawdy-house    that    same 
line  wavers  and  disappears."* 

We  may  add  as  a  third  illustrative  expression  the 
words  of  a  somewhat  younger  man  than  either  Dr. 
DuBois  or  Professor  Miller.  His  medium  is  the  organ 
of  the  more  radical  school  of  Negro  thought.  In  a 
presentation  of  the  respective  positions  of  this  school 
and  of  the  conservatives,  identified  in  this  instance 
with  the  "Tuskegee  idea,"  Mr.  William  Pickens  has 
this  to  say  of  "social  equality":  "There  is  another 
question,  a  question  purely  of  personal  liberty  and 
individual  equality,  but  which  is  usually  mystified 
by  the  following  phrase  of  vicious  association,  'social 
equality.'  Here  one  side  advises,  'quietly  accept  the 
imposition  of  inferiority.  It  is  a  lie,  but  just  treat 
it  as  the  truth  for  the  sake  of  peace.  Diligently 
apply  to  the  white  man  the  title  of  gentleman,  and 
care  not  if  he  persists  in  addressing  you  as  he  calls  his 
horse  and  his  dog.  Be  patient.  This  general  dis 
respect  and  discrimination  will  develop  into  the  proper 
respect  and  impartiality  at  some  time  in  the  long  lapse 
of  geological  ages,  just  as  the  eohippus  has  developed 
into  the  race-horse,  and  the  ancestor  of  the  baboon 
into  a  respectable  Anglo-Saxon.'  The  other  side  says, 
*  I  ask  for  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  liberty  to  associ 
ate  with  any  free  man  who  wishes  to  associate  with 
me.  Your  colour  discriminations,  legal  or  not,  are 
all  damnable,  inasmuch  as  they  draw  an  artificial 

*  "The  Relation  of  the  Negroes  to  the  Whites  in  the  South,"  W.  E.  B.  Du 
Bois,  "Annals  of  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,"  Vol.  18. 
No.  i,  July,  1901,  pp  138,  139. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     329 

and  heartless  line,  give  encouraging  suggestions  to  the 
vicious,  and  allow  the  stronger  in  brute  power  to  force 
bastardy  upon  the  weaker  without  remedy.  Colour 
has  absolutely  no  virtue  for  me,  and  however  much  I 
am  outnumbered  I  will  not  retreat  one  inch  from  that 
principle.  However  little  my  position  might  affect 
savage  opposition,  by  the  God  of  your  fathers  and 
mine,  I  will  never  by  voluntary  act  or  word  acknowl 
edge  as  the  truth  what  I  know  to  be  the  grossest  of 
lies.  And  you  might  ask  all  the  truly  valiant  hearts 
of  the  world  and  the  ages  how  they  beat  toward  these 
contrary  tenets."* 

Here  are  the  frankly  avowed  expressions  of  three 
representative  men.  They  are  men  of  education,  in 
the  highest  sense,  of  trained  minds,  of  broad  culture 
and  of  irreproachable  private  character.  Personally, 
they  have  their  associates  among  others  of  similar 
acquirements  and  tastes.  The  group  to  which  they 
belong  is  to-day  easily  superior  intellectually  to  any 
other  identified  with  the  Negro  race  here  or  elsewhere. 
It  is  a  group  of  which  the  country  is  likely  to  hear 
more  some  day,  if  education  and  brains  count  for  any 
thing  in  moulding  Negro  opinion.  It  is  the  school 
with  which  the  advocates  of  the  programme  of  "indus 
trialism"  may  also  have  to  reckon. f  It  would  be  shal- 

*  "Choose,"  William  Pickens,  Voice  of  the  Negro,  June,  1906.     p.  405. 

t  In  the  article  from  which  we  have  just  quoted  Mr.  Pickens  says,  in  speaking 
of  political  conditions:  "Acquaintance  with  such  conditions  without  at  the 
same  time  being  acquainted  with  the  Negro,  particularly  with  the  'rising  genera 
tion',  would  render  one  pessimistic.  But,  thank  God,  there  is  one  great  advan 
tage  in  it  all:  The  Negro  is  not  being  fooled.  The  aspiring,  ambitious,  intelli 
gent  members  of  the  race  know  what  is  the  matter.  And  especially  is  the 
coming  generation  alive  to  the  situation.  If  you  have  any  doubt  of  the  young 


330      The  American  Race  Problem 

low  and  absurd  to  dismiss  these  declarations  as  mere 
expressions  of  personal  desire  for  "social  equality," 
as  that  term  is  commonly  used.  Probably  the  only 
individual  outward  change  which  would  be  wrought 
for  such  men  by  a  full  compliance  with  all  they  would 
ever  demand,  would  be  to  afford  them  greater  comfort 
in  travelling  and  better  accommodations  at  the  end 
of  a  journey.  They  do  not  "crave  white  society." 
They  have  no  desire  to  associate  with  any  man  save 
on  mutually  agreeable  terms.  What  they  would 
demand  is  the  American  privilege  of  using  such  purely 
public  accommodations  as  they  might  desire  to  use 
and  for  which  they  might  be  able  to  pay,  and  as  indivi 
duals  to  associate  with  any  other  individuals  who 
might  wish  to  associate  with  them.  The  first  is  purely 
a  "civil"  right;  the  second,  as  the  world  reckons  it, 
is  a  matter  of  personal  concern;  yet,  wholly  or  in 
part,  each  is  denied  the  average  man  of  the  race  in 
America,  regardless  of  sectional  lines.  And  to  the 
enjoyment  of  both  privileges  the  white  man  has  applied 
the  comprehensive  and  forbidding  term  "social  equality," 
without  regard  to  its  derivation  or  its  accuracy  of  defi 
nition.  What,  then,  is  the  real  meaning  of  their  words? 

A  Phenomenon  of  Race  Consciousness 

Somewhere,    probably    in    his    "Africander    Land," 
Archibald    R.    Colquhoun    interprets    the   "Ethiopian 

Negro's  choice  of  the  foregoing  opinions  just  acquaint  yourself  with  an  intelligent 
body  of  them  in  any  part  of  this  country.  Spite  of  seductive  influence  of 
gold  and  silver  the  Negro  of  the  future  promises  to  be  the  humanitarian  bit  of 
leaven  in  the  American  mass  of  commercialism." —  Ibid.,  p.  407. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      33 l 

Church"  movement  as  a  manifestation  of  the  dawning 
of  race  consciousness  to  the  South  African  Negro  mind. 
He  thinks  that  the  movement  is  one  of  inevitable  race 
cleavage,  and  that  it  is  racial  rather  than  religious. 
This  seems  to  me  a  correct  diagnosis.  The  church  is 
used  to  effect  an  organisation.  It  becomes  a  nucleus 
around  which  social  ideas  and  policies  may  be  developed 
toward  a  definite  objective.  The  latter  may  never  be 
realised,  probably  will  not  be,  but  its  articulate  expres 
sion  is  "Africa  for  the  Africans"  —  a  slogan  which 
need  not  be  misunderstood.  The  development  of  the 
American  Negro  has  also  centred  largely  about  the 
church  organisation.  And  it  is  not  singular  that  the 
movement  started  in  far  off  Africa  should  have  received 
its  strongest  support  from  the  distantly  related  tribes 
of  the  west  coast,  transplanted  to  American  soil.  Nor 
need  we  wonder  that  the  cry  thus  raised  in  a  part  of 
their  native  land  finds  an  echo  to-day  in  thousands  of 
American  Negro  hearts.  It  is  probable  that  every 
race  has  its  own  peculiar  "human  nature,"  but  there  is 
also  a  "human  nature"  common  to  all  the  races  of 
mankind.  This  is  the  response  of  people  to  the  calling 
voice  of  their  own  kind,  whether  the  call  be  a  cry  of 
exultation  or  a  wail  of  despair.  It  is  the  response  of 
race  instinct,  which,  and  which  alone,  makes  blood 
thicker  than  water.  It  is  the  common  trait  which  deep 
in  the  heart  of  the  mass  makes  the  white  man  sympa 
thise  with  the  white  man  and  the  Negro  with  the  Negro, 
wherever  the  lines  are  drawn  between  the  two.  It  is 
this  which  makes  nations  and  races  potentially  great. 


332      The  American  Race  Problem 

Its  development  marks  the  progress  of  men  from  scat 
tered  and  helpless  tribal  organisations  to  a  unified, 
cohesive  racial  life,  and  finally  makes  possible  the 
growth  of  nation  from  race. 

The  white  man  deceives  himself  if  he  cherishes  the 
idea  that  this  universal  human  impulse  is  not  latent  in 
Negro  life.  The  Negro  has  not  yet  developed  a  race 
consciousness,  and  he  is  still  very  far  removed  from 
anything  approaching  a  national  life.  But  in  both 
Africa  and  America  the  dawn  of  the  first  is  beginning 
to  be  seen.  And  in  South  Africa  he  is  groping,  more 
or  less  blindly  and  awkwardly  perhaps,  but  still  groping, 
toward  the  light  of  possible  nationality.  Their  ancient 
continent  is  the  only  place  on  the  globe  where  a  national 
life  is  possible  —  if  indeed  it  prove  to  be  possible  there. 
It  is  the  only  place  where  the  experiment  may  be  even 
tried.  We  need  not  stop  to  so  much  as  consider  the 
artificial  travesties  erected  upon  the  blood-stained 
ruins  of  white  civilisation  in  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo. 
They  will  sometime  disappear  in  a  night,  when  the 
American  white  man  wants  another  island  for  some 
real  or  fancied  use,  even  as  the  "  Republic  of  Panama" 
was  born  in  a  day  after  a  similar  conception.  In  Amer 
ica,  and  this  is  all,  we  may  see  the  Negro  instinctively 
striving  after  identity  with  the  national  existence  of 
which  he  forms  an  artificial  and  unassimilated  part. 
Back  of  this  lies  the  same  impulse  of  awakening  racial 
life.  What  the  movement  here  may  be,  no  man  may 
say,  nor  how  it  will  manifest  itself  from  time  to  time. 
Having  here  no  possible  separate  national  life  of  his 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      333 

own,  his  developing  instinct  manifests  itself  in  an 
effort  toward  equality  of  opportunity  and  place  in  that 
of  the  white  man  who  surrounds  him  and  hems  him 
in.  Every  step  toward  such  fancied  equality  is  hailed 
as  a  mark  of  racial  progress. 

The  Negro  has  had  theoretical  political  equality 
for  many  years.  It  is  no  longer  a  novelty  in  principle, 
and  everywhere  in  the  country  to-day  the  privilege 
of  voting  is  also  practically  exercised  by  varying  num 
bers  of  the  race.  The  same  thing  holds  as  to  theoretical 
"civil  rights,"  save  as  to  such  as  may  chance  to  fall 
within  the  white  man's  uncertain  and  somewhat  con 
fusing  definition  of  "social  equality."  And  here  we 
come  to  the  ultimate  test  of  real  equality  in  any  form. 
This  is  the  final  test  which  those  members  of  any  race 
which  finds  itself  in  contact  with  another,  who  feel 
themselves  the  moral  and  intellectual  equals  of  that 
other,  will  soon  or  late  make  the  measure  of  the  degree 
and  character  of  association  which  exists  between  the 
two.  To  sum  up  the  case  in  Mr.  Miller's  words:  "So 
cial  eligibility  is  the  one  determinative  test  of  all  true 
equality." 

If  we  apply  the  test  to  our  own  individual  lives  we 
may  better  realise  its  force.  What  are  all  the  political 
and  civil  rights  in  the  world  to  the  man  who  is  a  social 
pariah?  And  just  as  the  granting  of  this  form  of  equal 
ity  is  taken  to  be  the  final  and  only  admission  of  equal 
ity  in  every  form,  so  is  its  denial  held  to  be  a  denial 
of  true  equality  in  any  form.  And  the  rights  which 
we  call  social  play  their  part  in  intercourse  among 


334 


The  American  Race  Problem 


nations  as  well  as  in  intercourse  among  men.  No 
admission  of  equality  which  America  could  make  to 
Japan  would  atone  for  the  stigma  of  a  national  approval 
of  the  separation  of  Japanese  children  from  white  in  the 
schools  of  San  Francisco.  Social  equality  has  a  differ 
ent  significance,  a  broader,  more  comprehensive  mean 
ing,  at  the  point  of  racial  contact  than  is  apprehended 
by  those  against  whom  it  is  not  threatened  and  to 
whom  it  is  not  denied.  It  means  more  to  the  Southern 
white  man  in  his  environment  than  to  the  Northern 
white  man  in  his,  and  racially  more  to  the  Negro  than 
to  either.  If  we  will  but  reason  it  out  we  need  not 
be  troubled  to  understand  the  Southern  white  man's 
attitude. 

The  existence  of  the  white  American's  social  barrier 
is  all  that  stands  between  the  American  Negro  and 
American  "equality."  Every  incident  which  possesses 
a  significance  translatable  into  evidence  of  its  possible 
removal  means  for  the  cruder  Negro  mind  one  other 
faltering  step  toward  the  goal  which  is  to  mark  the  end 
of  ostracism.  It  is  hailed  by  such  as  these  as  we  have 
seen  the  Washington  dinner  hailed.  And  the  white 
man  whose  actions  in  high  position  place  the  stamp 
of  powerful  disapproval  upon  a  detested  social  law 
is  acclaimed  an  emancipator  from  a  thralldom  more 
galling  to  the  higher  Negro  groups  to-day  than  was 
ever  the  physical  bondage  of  those  who  fifty  years  ago 
cheerfully  stood  upon  a  lower  plane.  But  we  should 
keep  in  mind  the  groups  into  which  the  American  Negro 
has  gradually  divided.  I  have  said  that  the  lower 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     335 

group,  the  masses  of  the  South  and  of  the  country, 
care  nothing  for  social  equality  in  any  form.  The 
presence  of  a  white  man  in  any  social  relation 
would  be  to  them  an  intolerably  disquieting  associ 
ation.  Race  consciousness  for  them  is  still  in  its 
first  and  lowest  stage  —  that  of  the  instinctive  draw 
ing  together  of  a  weaker  people  for  defence  against 
a  stronger  —  which,  for  example,  guarantees  the 
fleeing  criminal  a  haven  with  his  race,  if  only  [his 
pursuers  are  white. 

Some  inkling  of  the  happenings  in  higher  Negro 
life  filters  down  to  this  lower  stratum,  with  more  or 
less  of  possible,  though  very  indefinable,  effect.  But 
nothing  is  heard  from  this  lowest  group  on  such  in 
cidents  as  we  are  discussing,  just  as  very  little  is 
heard  from  the  highest,  such  as  the  men  from  whom 
I  have  quoted.  The  latter  are  not  deceived  by  the 
isolated  cases  which  create  such  strife  in  the  world 
about  them  and  below  them.  They  know  that  one 
swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  and,  as  Kelly 
Miller  quite  clearly  shows,  they  know  the  race  which 
stands  before  them.  For  the  most  part  they  merely 
voice  the  abstract  intellectual  conviction  of  the  necessity 
of  the  removal  of  social  barriers  as  a  condition  precedent 
to  the  final  recognition  of  a  full  measure  of  equality 
for  any  race.  The  clamour  comes  from  the  group 
below  these  higher  types  —  the  editors  and  essayists 
who  talk  about  the  "smashing  of  social  equality  idols" 
and  the  "object  lessons"  furnished  one  section  of  the 
country  by  the  actions  of  individuals  elsewhere.  They 


336     The  American  Race  Problem 

are  a  numerous  and  a  growing  class,  and  their  influence 
upon  the  masses  is  probably  greater  than  that  of  those 
above  them,  for  they  are  not  as  far  removed.  It  is 
greater,  perhaps,  than  we  know. 

We  shall  conclude  this  branch  of  the  subject  with 
this  observation:  In  a  very  important  sense  no  "race 
problem"  is  susceptible  of  "solution."  A  race  problem 
arises  from  contact  along  frictional  lines  between  races 
possessing  such  inherited  physical  and  mental  differ 
ences  as  produce  a  natural  and  easily  defined  line  of  clea 
vage  between  the  two.  As  long  as  either  the  charac 
teristic  physical  or  mental  differences  persist  a  problem 
will  remain.  The  more  marked  the  differences  the 
greater  the  resulting  problem.  The  essence  of  the 
difficulty  is  the  inability  to  reconcile  these  natural 
differences  upon  a  basis  of  artificial  equality.  The 
problem  becomes  more  acute  as  the  assertion  of  equality 
becomes  more  pronounced.  It  disappears  only  with 
such  a  degree  of  assimilation  as  eliminates  the  differ 
entiating  factors,  by  merging  the  two  constituent 
elements  of  the  problem  into  one.  But  this  is  not  a 
"solution."  There  may  be  a  possible  basis  of  com 
promise  between  two  races,  a  sort  of  treaty  of  peace,  so  to 
speak,  under  which  the  two  may  occupy  a  common  terri 
tory  with  a  minimum  degree  of  friction.  But  on  analysis 
every  such  adjustment  will  be  found  to  contain,  as  a 
fundamental  condition,  a  recognition,  open  or  implied, 
of  the  superiority  or  dominance  of  one  race,  and  the 
reciprocal  inferiority  or  dependence  of  the  other.  Such 
a  modus  vivendi  may  easily  amount  to  a  practical  solu- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro 


337 


tion  of  certain  phases  of  the  problem  for  the  masses 
of  the  dependent  race.  It  is  a  mockery  and  a  sham 
in  so  far  as  the  superior  members  of  that  race  are  con 
cerned.  For  them  there  is  but  one  "solution,"  and 
its  very  essence,  its  beginning  and  its  end,  all  are  sum 
med  up  in  the  one  word  "equality."  Just  in  so  far  as 
the  relation  and  association  between  the  superior 
and  inferior  classes  of  the  weaker  race  are  intimate  or 
remote,  will  this  adjustment  between  the  two  races 
themselves  be  difficult  or  easy  to  establish  and  main 
tain.  When  the  superior  individual  identifies  himself, 
or  is  identified  by  the  world,  with  the  inferior  mass, 
he  may  be  counted  upon  to  protest  against  such  a 
compromise.  Where  he  is  not  so  identified,  but  is 
treated  solely  upon  his  merits  as  an  individual,  he  will 
be  less  apt  to  prove  an  opposing  factor  to  such  an 
arrangement.* 

Racial  conditions  in  Jamaica  fulfill  this  last  require 
ment,  and  illustrate  our  position,  better  than  in  any 
other  territory  which  contains  a  large  Negro  population. 
The  absence  of  a  race  problem  in  Jamaica,  such  as  we 
have  here,  is  often  commented  on  by  travellers  and 
publicists,  both  English  and  American.  It  is  not 
uncommon  for  the  island  to  be  held  up  as  an  example 


*  Dr.  Woodworth,  President  of  Tougaloo  University,  Miss.,  relates  a  conver 
sation  with  "a.  prominent  Negro  lawyer  about  the  separate  car  law,"  which 
illustrates  the  point  I  would  suggest.  Dr.  Woodworth  says:  "He  had  nothing 
to  say  against  the  inherent  unrighteousness  of  a  colour  discrimination,  as  might 
have  been  expected.  He  summed  up  his  objections  in  the  emphatic  statement, 
'What  I  dislike  about  the  law  is  that  it  puts  me  in  with  a  lot  of  niggers  with 
whom  I  do  not  wish  to  associate."  He  favoured  the  European  system  of  class 
cars." — "Discrimination,"  Frank  G.  Woodworth,  Southern  Workman,  Nov., 
1900,  p.  616. 


338      The  American  Race  Problem 

of  what  the  South  could  do,  if  only  it  were  as  just  and 
wise.  The  answer  to  this  involves  a  consideration  of 
certain  fundamental  differences  between  Jamaica  and 
the  Southern  states  which  these  commentators  seem 
unable  to  comprehend  and  which  we  cannot  take  up 
here.  Jamaica  is  a  Crown  Colony,  from  which  politics 
were  practically  eliminated,  and  largely  on  the  Negro's 
account,  forty-two  years  ago.  At  most  they  can  only 
play  at  the  game.  Jamaica  is  also  a  detached,  ocean- 
bound  island,  with  the  peculiar  insular  freedom  from 
continental  complications.  Its  people  are  at  liberty 
to  work  out  their  own  destiny  along  their  own  normal 
lines,  without  the  interference  of  outside  ignorance 
or  interest.  The  agitator  or  malcontent  finds  no  field 
for  his  vocation.  The  island  is  too  small  for  him  and 
he  usually  drifts  to  the  "States."  In  Jamaica  emanci 
pation  occurred  practically  a  generation  earlier  than 
in  America,  which  means  three  decades  longer  in 
which  to  have  effected  an  adjustment  than  we  have 
had  here.  And  in  Jamaica  the  abolition  of  slavery 
was  not  followed  by  Reconstruction.  But  next  to 
differences  of  political  and  governmental  condi 
tions,  the  most  important  consideration  is  that  first 
suggested.* 

The  mulatto  and  Negro  types  constitute  separate 
and  distinct  elements  of  the  population.  The  former 
is  enumerated  as  "coloured"  by  the  census,  while  the 


*  Since  the  above  was  written  Mr.  W.  P.  Livingstone  —  the  best  student  of 
the  Negro  ever  sent  to  the  West  Indies  by  England  —  has  very  clearly  pointed 
out  the  fundamental  basis  of  difference  between  the  American  and  Jamaican 
situations  which  I  have  indicated  here. —  "The  American  and  West  Indian 
Negro,"  North  American  Review,  July  19,  1907. 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     339 

latter  is  classed  as  " black."  The  mixed  class  furnishes 
the  business  and  professional  men  of  "the  Negro  race," 
and  such  representation  in  the  official  life  of  the  island 
as  is  accorded  it.  The  "blacks"  form  a  peasant  class, 
practically  contented,  which  constitutes  no  problem 
graver  than  that  of  police  surveillance  and  adminis 
tration.  Theoretically,  and  sometimes  actually,  if  one 
of  the  "blacks"  shows  evidence  of  superior  capacity 
he  obtains  recognition,  but  he  also  loses  his  identity 
with  the  real  Negro  element,  as  we  understand  the 
association  here.  Whatever  basis  of  racial  adjust 
ment  might  be  agreed  upon  between  whites  and  mu- 
lattoes,  or  evolved  in  the  process  of  time,  was  final. 
It  did  not  need  the  ratification  of  the  blacks.  Before 
1 86 1  the  property-holding,  free  mulatto  class  of  Louisi 
ana  had  gained  for  itself  such  measure  of  recognition 
as  for  many  practical  purposes  removed  it  largely 
from  the  "Negro"  class.  With  emancipation  this 
type  became  largely  identified  with  the  "equalised" 
Negro,  and  has  been  gradually  submerged  by  the 
heavier  mass  of  the  latter.  It  is  not  necessary  to  ques 
tion  the  sincerity  of  the  attachment  of  the  superior 
mulatto,  or  occasional  Negro,  individual  to  the  inter 
ests  of  the  black  masses.  When  we  say  that  if  such 
individuals  were  accorded  by  white  people  the  measure 
of  recognition  to  which  as  individuals  and  as  a  class 
they  felt  themselves  entitled  by  education,  culture,  and 
attainments,  we  would  probably  hear  much  less  than 
we  do  about  "the  denial  of  rights  to  the  Negro,"  we 
merely  recognise  a  very  elementary  trait  of  human 


340 


The  American  Race  Problem 


nature.  In  doing  this  we  simply  take  cognizance  of 
the  operation  of  a  practically  applied  theory  in  the 
island  of  Jamaica. 

The  Southern  Referee 

An  analysis  of  the  onetime  differences  between  Mr. 
Roosevelt  and  the  South  would  be  incomplete  without 
a  few  words  for  the  former's  system  of  Southern  "re 
ferees."  To  a  " reformer,"  Southern  Republican  poli 
tics  offered  an  irresistibly  attractive  field.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  was  also  naturally  inclined  to  break  up  the  old 
Hanna-McKinley  machine.  He  did  it  most  effectively, 
North  and  South.  But  in  the  South  he  was  peculiarly 
unfortunate  in  his  methods.  For  an  appreciation  of 
the  full  significance  of  such  methods,  and  of  the  part 
they  played  in  erecting  a  barrier  between  Mr.  Roose 
velt  and  the  Southern  people,  we  must  again  turn  to 
pyschology,  sentiment,  and  Reconstruction. 

We  may  say  what  we  please,  and  draw  as  many 
logical  conclusions  as  we  like,  about  duty  and  treason. 
We  may  be  wholly  right  and  accurate  in  our  technical 
definitions.  But  what  if  we  are?  In  the  great  uni 
versal  heart  of  man  the  only  traitor  is  he  who  is  false 
to  his  people,  the  only  treason  is  that  of  turning  one's 
back  upon  one's  neighbours  and  friends.  This  differ 
entiates  foreign  from  civil  wars.  In  the  former  the 
people  are  one  and  men  are  neighbours  without  re 
gard  to  distances  between  them.  The  cause  of  the 
country  is  the  cause  of  all  its  people,  and  treason  to 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     341 

one's  country  is  heinous  only  because  it  necessarily 
involves  treason  to  one's  people  also.  Who  were  the 
"patriots"  and  who  were  the  "traitors"  in  the  War 
of  the  Revolution?  The  answer  depends  upon  whether 
we  are  Englishmen  or  Americans?  The  "loyalist" 
of  one  was  the  traitor  of  the  other,  the  traitor  of  one 
was  the  patriot  of  the  other.  In  a  civil  war,  a  war 
among  sectional  divisions  of  the  people  of  the  same 
country,  who  are  traitors  and  who  are  loyalists,  and 
what  are  they  treacherous  or  loyal  to  ?  It  is  idle  to  talk 
about  theories  of  government  as  determining  such 
questions.  The  final  estimate  of  the  world  will  no 
more  make  a  "traitor"  of  a  man  who,  through  good 
repute  and  ill,  stands  or  falls  with  his  own  people,  than 
it  can  make  a  "patriot"  of  one  who  has  to  leave  his 
home  and  desert  his  people  in  order  to  be  "loyal" 
Robert  E.  Lee  is  not  a  "traitor"  in  the  estimation  of 
mankind.  There  is  something  almost  grotesque  in 
such  a  suggestion.  But  this  is  not  because  of  some 
fancied  virtue  derived  from  the  fact  that  Lee  had 
been  taught  that  a  state  had  the  right  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union.  It  is  because  of  the  fact  that  with  a 
self-abnegation  not  surpassed  in  any  time  and  not 
equalled  in  our  own,  putting  behind  him  every  consid 
eration  of  self-interest  and  every  opinion  of  his  own 
as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  action  of  his  state,  he  cast  his 
lot  with  his  people  and  without  a  murmur  shared  their 
fortunes  and  their  fate.  We  have  but  to  ask  ourselves 
what  would  have  been  his  place  in  the  estimate  of  the 
world,  had  he  remained  in  the  army  and  fought  on  the 


342      The  American  Race  Problem 

Federal  side?  He  would  have  been  a  great  general, 
and  probably  had  an  equestrian  statue  in  Washington, 
and  Arlington  would  not  now  be  a  national  cemetery. 
He  might  have  been  elected  President.  But  he 
would  not  have  been  the  Lee  which  the  world 
knows  to-day. 

The  converse  of  this  is  the  estimate  in  which  a  man 
is  held  who  deserts  his  people  in  their  hour  of  need. 
The  measure  of  sentiment  against  him  will  be  the  causes 
which  prompted  his  course,  whether  he  is  credited 
with  motives  of  principle  or  charged  with  impulses  of 
greed.  Always  the  depth  and  duration  of  feeling 
against  him  will  depend  upon  the  circumstances  and 
condition  of  the  people  whose  cause  he  renounced. 
It  meant  little  to  a  man  in  the  North  to  espouse  the 
side  of  the  South  after  war  was  over,  and  to  plead  for 
fair  play  toward  a  defeated  and  helpless  people.  He 
might  clearly  claim,  and  possibly  be  accorded,  the 
tribute  due  a  generous  nature.  The  situation  was 
different  in  the  South.  There  was  but  one  course  to 
pursue,  particularly  after  the  congressional  policy 
began  to  assume  definite  form.  Desertion  then  be 
came  a  crime  more  odious  and  detestable  than  would 
have  been  cowardice  or  desertion  in  war.  And  the 
course  of  such  as  these  immortalised  an  old  word  and 
gave  a  new  one  to  our  political  vocabulary.  As  "  Burk 
ing"  once  came  to  stand  for  the  very  capstone  of  Scot 
tish  crime,  so  "Scalawag"  stood  and  still  stands  in 
the  minds  of  Southern  people  as  the  almost  breathing 
embodiment  of  an  infamy  peculiarly  its  own.  Occa- 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     343 

sionally  it  is  sought  to  turn  the  point  of  Southern  criti 
cism  of  Reconstruction  with  the  statement  that  many 
of  its  most  vicious  features  were  due  to  the  participation 
of  men  born  on  Southern  soil.  No  Southern  man  will 
be  found  to  defend  the  Southern  renegade  on  such  an 
issue.  The  outside  world  probably  does  not  compre 
hend  the  depth  of  Southern  feeling  toward  the  creature 
who  forsook  his  people  in  their  darkest  hour  and  sold 
himself  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

Southern  people  would  be  less  than  human  if  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  referee  system  did  not  recall  to  their  minds 
with  painful  vividness  the  most  despised  of  Reconstruc 
tion  tools.  The  system,  as  we  are  considering  it  here, 
consists  in  appointing  a  Southern  white  Democrat  to 
some  Federal  office,  and  referring  to  him  all  matters 
of  Federal  patronage  in  his  state.  It  is  an  anomaly 
in  American  politics.  The  referee  at  once  takes  the 
place  of  the  state's  Representatives  and  Senators 
and  of  the  state  party  organisation  as  well.  He  be 
comes  the  official,  or  unofficial,  medium  of  communica 
tion  between  the  President  and  the  people  of  the  state 
in  all  matters  of  Federal  concern.  He  makes  and  un 
makes  politicians,  fills  local  offices,  and  dispenses  ad 
ministration  favours.  He  is  a  creature  without  a  place, 
neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  fowl.  The  system  is  thoroughly 
vicious,  but  that  is  not  our  concern.  People  do  not 
like  to  see  their  immediate  fellows  bought  in  the  poli 
tical  market,  even  though  there  are  of  course  some 
who  are  always  for  sale.  The  system  simply  served  to 
perpetuate  and  emphasise  the  difference  between  the 


344     The  American  Race  Problem 

South  and  the  rest  of  the  country.  The  Southern 
states,  those  in  which  the  system  was  inaugurated, 
were  once  more  reminded  of  their  satrapical  Recon 
struction  character.  There  was  absolutely  no  question 
of  politics  involved,  in  so  far  as  the  people  of  the  States 
were  concerned.  They  of  course  expected  no  patronage 
from  a  hostile  administration.  The  question  has  its 
practical  bearings,  however,  for  at  least  in  one  state 
the  results  were  as  detestable  as  some  features  of  Recon 
struction  itself.  But  above  all,  the  matter  was  one 
of  sentiment.  The  referee  was  too  closely  related 
to  the  "scalawag"  not  to  be  a  thorn  in  the  flesh. 
Like  his  prototype,  however,  he  served  his  day,  and 
has  all  but  disappeared,  save  from  memory  and 
in  name. 

Conclusion 

In  applying  the  conclusions  of  this  exposition  we 
would  first  suggest  that  if  the  only  parties  to  be  con 
sidered  were  those  immediately  in  interest,  an  inter 
pretation  of  the  significance  of  their  acts  and  motives 
would  not  be  worth  attempting.  Mr.  Roosevelt  will 
not  be  the  last  President  of  this  republic,  nor  Mr.  Wash 
ington  the  last  leader  of  his  people.  The  Negroes  now 
in  office  will  disappear  and  be  forgotten.  This  genera 
tion  of  white  people  will  presently  pass  away.  These 
individuals  are  all  mere  figures  on  the  stage.  But 
the  essential  elements  with  which  we  have  tried  to 
deal  are  permanent  and  will  endure.  These  are  the 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     345 

factors  of  race  and  of  human  nature.     With  these  only 
need  we  be  concerned. 

With  these  fixed  elements  before  us  we  need  be  given 
only  the  historic  setting  of  any  racial  situation  to  pre 
dicate  its  sequence.  In  our  narrow  view  we  imagine 
these  problems  to  be  peculiarly  our  own.  In  fact 
there  is  no  novelty  in  the  things  which  so  disturb  us 
here.  The  social  and  official  attitude  of  more  than 
one  English  administrator  in  British  American  islands 
has  in  time  past  provoked  as  bitter  criticism  as  was 
aroused  by  Mr.  Roosevelt's  actions  here.  We  need 
not  think  that  we  are  the  only  people  who  ever  grew 
excited  over  a  dinner  between  an  eminent  Negro  and 
an  eminent  white  man.  Twelve  years  ago  a  luncheon 
given  Khama,  the  South  African  Chief,  by  the  Duke 
of  Westminster  in  London,  provoked  the  "annoyance 
and  disgust"  to  use  Ambassador  Bryce's  phrase,  of 
the  white  people  in  his  native  country.  And  their 
resentment  was  as  difficult  to  understand  in  London 
as  was  that  of  the  South  by  the  people  in  New  York 
or  Boston.  Good  people  deplore  the  lack  of  "sym 
pathetic  cooperation"  between  the  best  elements  of 
the  races  in  the  Southern  states,  and  apparently  fancy 
themselves  to  be  the  discoverers  of  a  unique  manifes 
tation  of  the  "colour  line."  The  same  absence  of 
cooperation  between  the  same  elements  is  similarly 
deplored  in  South  Africa.  The  Southern  white  man 
has  many  things  to  keep  alive  the  feeling  of  outside 
interference  and  control  of  which  Booker  T.  Washington 
appreciates  the  force.  But  only  yesterday  the  action 


346     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  the  Colonial  Secretary  in  London,  in  interfering  in  a 
matter  of  local  moment  between  the  whites  and  Negroes 
of  Natal,  provoked  the  deep  resentment  of  the  English 
colonists.  So  much  so,  indeed,  that  some  of  the  ablest 
and  soberest  amongst  them  did  not  hesitate  to  suggest 
a  parallel  between  their  possible  course  under  further 
irritation  and  that  of  the  American  colonists  under  the 
policy  of  Lord  North.  And  always  there  is  in  evidence 
the  same  dominating  motives  behind  the  white  man's 
attitude  —  apprehension  of  the  effect  upon  the  Negro, 
coupled  with  a  personal  social  aversion  born  of  contact 
with  the  masses  of  the  race. 

We  shall  have  taken  our  first  long  step  toward  the 
saner  discussion  and  consideration  of  the  problem  only 
when  we  have  learned  the  simplest  primal  fact  of  racial 
contact,  that  it  is  a  question  of  race  and  not  a  question 
of  place.  The  situation  is  hopeless  as  long  as  sectional 
ism  determines  our  attitude  toward  it.  The  Northern 
white  man  must  learn  that  there  is  more  in  the  attitude 
of  his  Southern  brother  than  the  "senseless  race  pre 
judice"  of  which  we  hear  so  much.  We  must  finally 
realise  the  latent  force  of  the  instinctive  sense  of  racial 
self-preservation  which  operates  as  an  unconsciously 
dominating  impulse  in  higher  racial  types  when  in 
the  presence  of  large  masses  of  a  lower,  but  which 
otherwise  does  not  make  itself  felt.  The  Southern 
white  man  must  learn  that  this  is  all  there  is  in  his 
own  attitude,  emphasised  by  the  influences  which 
we  have  attempted  to  analyse.  Also  that  a  different 
attitude  on  the  part  of  people  elsewhere  possesses  no 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro     347 

significance,  other  than  as  indicating  merely  an  absence 
of  the  conditions  which  dictate  his  own  individual 
course.  The  South  should  know  that  the  North  is 
not,  by  any  individual  or  group  action,  trying  to  de 
range  her  social  laws  or  customs.  On  each  side  of  the 
line  we  must  grant  a  larger  measure  of  uncriticised 
individual  conduct  on  the  other.  Each  of  us  would 
as  well  learn  now  as  half  a  century  hence,  that  in  fact 
if  in  the  other's  place  we  would  do  as  the  other  does, 
entirely  regardless  of  what  we  now  imagine  we  would  do. 
This  is  human  nature. 

The  naked  fact  that  certain  acts  of  an  individual, 
who  was  for  the  moment  President  of  the  United 
States,  provoked  the  resentment  of  one  section  of  his 
countrymen  and  elicited  the  admiration  and  applause 
of  another,  may  be  in  itself  the  merest  matter  of  cas 
ual  interest.  It  becomes  clothed  with  deeper  meaning 
when  we  grasp  the  significance  of  the  impulses  beneath 
the  contrary  emotions  which  the  acts  arouse.  In 
their  final  analysis  these  conflicting  emotions  possess 
a  significance  which  is  racial  in  its  human  breadth  and 
meaning.  If  we  are  sufficiently  familiar  with  the 
broader  aspects  of  racial  problems  to  know  that  given 
situations  between  two  races  produce  practically  uni 
form  results,  without  regard  to  the  subsidiary  question 
of  geographical  situs,  we  can  at  once  eliminate  the 
sectional  factor  from  our  present  equation.  If  we  are 
ignorant  of  this  fundamental  consideration  ourselves, 
and  decline  to  accept  the  findings  of  others,  then  we 
shall  probably  becloud  the  issue  and  wholly  mis- 


348     The  American  Race  Problem 

interpret  the  situation  before  us.  In  this  larger  aspect 
of  the  case,  Mr.  McKinley  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr. 
Washington  disappear  from  view.  They  are  unim 
portant  in  themselves.  And  sectional  lines  have  no 
more  significance,  per  se,  than  have  these  individuals. 
Had  the  geographical  positions  of  the  people  in  the 
sections  been  reversed,  the  world  would  have  been 
none  the  wiser.  Their  respective  attitudes  were,  and 
are,  determined  merely  by  the  circumstances  of  their 
respective  environments.  Racially  they  are  funda 
mentally  alike,  and  the  same  conditions  will  make  the 
same  appeal  to  each  —  with  certainty  of  the  same 
response.  I  have  stated  this  elementary  proposition 
many  times.  Some  day  it  will  cease  to  be  disputed. 
Of  all  the  inexcusable  features  of  the  American  race 
problem  the  most  senseless  is  the  sectionalism  with 
which  it  has  become  saturated  through  the  petty 
differences  of  environment  produced  by  differences  of 
geographical  conditions. 

There  should  be  some  practical  value  in  interpreting 
the  course  of  these  events.  Their  history  should  at 
least  suggest  that  persons  in  authority  would  do  well 
to  appreciate  the  difference  between  formulating  poli 
cies  for  fairly  homogeneous  peoples,  and  shaping  a 
course  of  practical  conduct  toward  populations  con 
taining  large  masses  of  widely  different  racial  types. 
They  should  realise  that  there  are  two  races  in  this 
country,  and  that  they  are  yet  too  far  apart  in  history 
and  development  to  be  treated  in  all  things  as  one. 
It  would  be  wise  to  bear  in  mind,  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  has 


Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Negro      349 

recently  reminded  us  in  another  connection,  "that 
in  the  long  run  even  the  most  uncomfortable  truth 
is  a  safer  companion  than  the  pleasantest  falsehood." 
There  is  one  clear  truth  which  stands  out  above  the 
beclouding  mists  and  fogs  of  forty  years  of  senseless 
strife,  and  with  the  ringer  of  experience  points  the 
way  to  safer  paths.  If  this  analysis  shows  anything 
at  all,  it  should  enable  us  to  see  this  truth,  which  is 
that  in  many  of  its  acuter  phases  the  problem  largely 
rests  with  persons  in  high  official  place.  It  is  entirely 
with  them  to  adopt  the  policy  which  shall  either  insure 
enmity  or  make  for  good-will  between  the  masses  of 
the  races  in  the  South.  There  is  no  abstract  question 
of  right  involved.  It  is  solely  one  of  wisdom  or  ex 
pediency,  as  we  prefer  to  call  it.  But  whatever  the 
policy,  it  should  be  intelligently  pursued.  Official 
conduct  should  not  proceed  upon  absurdly  false  as 
sumptions.  It  is  one  thing  to  bring  a  number  of 
individuals  of  a  distinct  American  type  into  official 
relationship  with  a  political  administration.  It  is 
something  quite  different  to  insist,  or  imagine,  that 
in  doing  so  we  are  offering  a  share  in  administrative 
control  to  another  and  a  different  element  of  the  popu 
lation. 

After  all,  ours  is  merely  a  segment  in  the  world- wide 
circle  of  problems  of  racial  contact.  It  existed  before 
the  present  actors  appeared  upon  the  scene.  It  will 
remain  after  they  have  left  the  stage.  They  cannot 
remove  it  before  they  go,  nor  can  they  take  it  with 
them  when  they  leave.  But  they  may  do  much  to 


350     The  American  Race  Problem 

make  it  easier  or  more  difficult  for  those  who  stand 
nearest  to  it,  for  those  of  both  races  of  whose  daily 
life  it  is  a  vital  part.* 

*  The  substance  of  this  paper  was  embodied  in  an  article  submitted  to  several 
magazines  while  the  Crum  and  Indianola  incidents  were  being  generally  dis 
cussed  throughout  the  country.  The  article  was  not  found  available.  This  paper 
was  written  because  of  the  writer's  conviction  that  the  history  and  course 
of  the  events  which  it  attempts  to  analyse  possess  a  deeper  and  more  permanent 
significance  than  is  commonly  recognised.  The  now  almost  forgotten  incidents 
do  not  in  themselves  merit  consideration. 


VIII 
THE  NEGRO  IN  POLITICS 

THE  experiment  of  Negro  suffrage  could  not  have 
been  tried  under  conditions  better  calculated 
to  produce  disastrous  results  than  under  such  as  existed 
in  the  South  in  1867.  No  better  means  could  have 
been  adopted  for  insuring  such  results  than  the  mea 
sures  which  accompanied  the  grant  of  the  franchise 
to  the  former  slave.  It  was  a  curious  intermixture  of 
ignorance,  philanthropy,  malice,  quixotic  political  theory 
and  what  not,  a  sort  of  nondescript  "devil's  broth," 
out  of  which  Negro  suffrage  was  evolved  after  1865. 
It  stands  as  the  greatest  self-confessed  failure  in  Ameri 
can  political  history.  It  is  a  debatable  question  upon 
which  party  was  inflicted  the  greater  harm  —  the 
Southern  white  man  or  the  Southern  Negro.  It  is 
occasionally  said  in  defence  that  the  fact  of  such  failure 
has  not  been  established;  that  Negro  suffrage  was 
never  given  a  fair  trial;  that  under  different  conditions 
different  results  might  follow. 

We  have  but  to  turn  to  the  debates  over  the  XV. 
Amendment  resolution,  and  catch  the  spirit  which 
actuated  so  many  of  its  supporters,  to  find  the  answer 
to  this  suggestion.  The  moving  impulse  was  an  almost 
simple,  childish,  a  scarcely  comprehensible,  faith  in  the 


352     The  American  Race  Problem 

ability  of  the  Negro  to  "take  care  of  himself"  if  Con 
gress  would  but  throw  about  him  "the  protection  of 
the  ballot."  The  very  essence  of  the  meaning  which 
lies  beneath  the  surface  of  the  failure  of  Negro  suffrage 
is  found  in  its  failure  to  accomplish  the  one,  the  solitary, 
purpose  which  its  modern  defenders  dare  urge  in  its 
behalf.  It  has  been  demonstrated  beyond  the  shadow 
of  doubt  that  the  ballot  could  not  "protect"  the  Negro. 
It  is  queer,  this  belief  in  the  subtle  efficacy  of  paper 
laws,  enacted  in  disregard  of  the  sentiment  and  wishes 
of  those  upon  whom  the}7  are  to  operate.  There  is 
something  almost  plaintive  in  Mr.  Elaine's  querulous 
complaint  against  the  South  for  not  accepting  Negro 
suffrage  with  the  quiet  humility  which  should  have 
characterised  the  conduct  of  people  who  theoretically 
occupied  the  position  of  suppliants  for  clemency  from 
a  victorious  opponent.  He  says  that  no  one  could 
foresee  such  unreasonable  and  violent  opposition  to  so 
eimple  an  act  of  righteous  justice. 

But  have  we  even  now  progressed  very  far  beyond 
this  state  of  inability  to  recognise  the  force  of  human 
nature?  During  the  forty  years  since  the  initial  grant 
of  Negro  suffrage,  in  the  military  Reconstruction  Act 
of  March  2,  1867,  have  we  in  truth  learned  so  very 
much  about  even  the  most  elementary  considerations 
which  underlie  this  aspect  of  our  problem?  The  pre 
diction  prompted  by  the  hard  common  sense  of  W.  H. 
Councill  in  1881  has  been  fulfilled  to  its  last  letter. 
The  Southern  white  people  have  "come  into  power," 
and  have  "taken  from  the  Negro  the  ballot  which  he 


The  Negro  in  Politics  353 

continued  to  cast  against  them,  right  or  wrong."*  And 
finally  the  Republican  party  in  the  South  has  sought 
to  "unload  the  Negro  element."  Only  yesterday  a 
message  was  delivered  by  Mr.  Taft  to  his  party  associ 
ates  in  North  Carolina,  and  through  them  to  the  South 
at  large.  Its  burden  was  a  plea  for  Republican  policies 
in  the  Southern  states,  coupled  with  thinly  veiled  ridi 
cule  of  the  "Southern  fear"  of  the  Negro  in  politics. 
The  echoes  of  his  speech  had  hardly  died  before  the 
convention  to  which  he  had  spoken  adopted  a  resolution 
which  practically  recognised  and  approved  the  Demo 
cratic  constitutional  provisions  for  restricting  the 
Negro  vote.  After  more  than  a  generation  Southern 
opposition  to  Negro  suffrage  had  ceased  to  be  a  matter 
of  party  affiliation. 

And  such  opposition  is  no  longer  confined  to  Southern 
people.  We  have  but  to  follow  the  situations  presented 
at  recurring  elections  in  those  Northern  cities  and 
states  in  which  the  Negro  is  an  important  political 
factor,  and  catch  the  utterances  of  men  of  all  shades 
of  opinion,  sometimes  unguardedly,  sometimes  deliber 
ately  made,  to  realise  the  discontent  which  the  Negro 
voter  breeds.  He  who  will  do  this  for  a  few  years 
and  also  secure  the  candid  expressions  of  men  in 
public  and  private  life,  must  be  an  optimist  indeed 
if  he  believes  that  outside  of  the  South  the  Amer 
ican  people  have  become  satisfied  with  the  Negro 
element  in  political  life.  How  many  states  in  the 
North  would  vote  for  Negro  suffrage  to-day,  if  it 

*See  page  279 


354 


The  American  Race  Problem 


were  still  a  Southern  experiment  and  did  not  exist 
elsewhere  ? 

It  is  said  that  any  discussion  of  Negro  suffrage  at 
this  late  day,  is  purely  academic  —  that  the  principle 
is  permanently  fixed  in  our  political  system.  We  are 
not  at  all  concerned  with  the  accuracy  or  inaccuracy 
of  this  proposition.  We  are  not  interested  in  Negro 
suffrage  per  se,  but  rather  in  its  elements  —  in  certain 
facts  which  accompany  it  and  characterise  it  and 
differentiate  it  from  the  concrete  act  and  expression 
of  self-governing  capacity  among  other  men.  We 
have  so  long  talked  about  the  Negro  that  we  have 
fixed  him  in  our  minds  as  the  individual  object  upon 
which  centres  an  opposition  which  in  fact  is  really 
directed  to  the  attributes  and  traits  for  which  he  stands. 
It  would  be  humanly  impossible  to  perpetuate  and 
disseminate  opposition  to  Negro  suffrage,  for  example, 
if  Negro  suffrage  did  not  stand  for  something  more 
definitely  objectionable  to  the  Caucasian  mind  than  a 
more  or  less  shadowed  complexion. 

In  affirming  the  validity  of  the  Mississippi  consti 
tution  of  1890,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
adopted  the  language  of  the  state  court,  and  in  effect 
declared  that  while  the  constitution  did  not  discrimi 
nate  against  the  Negro  in  specific  terms,  it  swept  the 
field  of  expedients  in  legislating  against  his  racial 
characteristics.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  nonsense 
indulged  in,  North  and  South,  about  these  Southern 
constitutions.  There  is  not  one  of  them  under  which 
the  Negro  is  not  disfranchised  automatically.  The 


The  Negro  in  Politics  355 

most  effective  bar  to  Negro  suffrage  ever  devised  is  the 
cumulative  poll  tax  provision  of  Georgia.  Yet  Georgia's 
is  not  numbered  among  the  offending  constitutions. 
The  tax  payment  requirements  of  these  constitutions 
are  directed  against  two  race  characteristics  —  lack 
of  thrift  and  absence  of  foresight  —  and  they  operate 
with  telling  effect.  Couple  with  these  the  requirement 
of  registration,  and  we  have  practically  all  there  is  of 
the  really  active  features  of  those  instruments.  The 
so-called  "understanding  clause ,"  for  example,  in  the 
constitution  of  Mississippi  is  a  dead  letter  to  all  intents 
and  purposes.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  has  been  resorted 
to,  all  told,  one  hundred  times  in  sixteen  years. 

The  political  activity  of  the  Negro  masses,  and  we 
are  speaking  of  the  masses,  was  almost  solely  a  matter 
of  leadership.  Without  intensely  active  leaders,  and 
then  only  by  resort  to  the  spur  of  most  vicious  appeals, 
the  potential  voting  strength  of  the  masses  could  never 
have  been  polled.  The  first  effect  of  the  adoption  of 
any  sort  of  suffrage  qualification  was  upon  the  leaders 
themselves,  both  white  and  mulatto.  They  imme 
diately  recognised  as  an  inevitable  consequence  of  even 
the  fairest  application  of  any  test,  such  a  falling  off 
in  the  ranks  of  their  cohorts  as  to  leave  them  practically 
nothing  to  lead.  They  were  shorn  of  their  power. 
Othello's  occupation  was  gone.  The  scattered  remnant 
of  such  as  could  qualify  was  not  worth  organising  for 
purposes  of  active  contests  in  which  the  end  henceforth 
was  known  in  advance.  They  deserted  the  now  fruit 
less  field  of  state  politics,  and  resigned  themselves  to 


356     The  American  Race  Problem 

attending  national  conventions  and  subsisting  upon 
crumbs  from  the  Federal  table.  For  this  purpose  only 
the  semblance  of  party  organisation  was  necessary, 
and  this  was  maintained.  It  was  this  organisation 
which  Mr.  Roosevelt  upset  with  his  novel  "referee" 
system.  With  these  leaders  there  was  no  question  of 
principle  involved.  To  their  practical  minds  there 
was  no  longer  either  reason  or  sense  in  attempting  to 
keep  up  sufficient  interest  among  the  masses  to  induce 
such  as  could  register  to  do  so.  The  impetus  of  their 
urging  thus  removed,  their  remaining  followers  became 
as  listless  as  the  average  "good  citizen"  or  "business 
man"  in  the  face  of  an  approaching  election  over  a 
contest  for  municipal  reform. 

All  form  of  visible  reward  having  disappeared,  and 
the  leader's  whip  no  longer  used,  the  Negro  voter  prac 
tically  ceased  to  exist.  He  at  least  became  numerically 
a  negligible  quantity  in  the  political  life  of  which  for 
almost  a  generation  he  had  played  a  serio-comic  part. 
There  was  no  chicanery  and  no  fraud.  There  was 
never  the  least  doubt  of  the  effect  of  any  sort  of  suffrage 
test  upon  the  Negro  masses.  And  it  is  only  the  masses 
who  have  been  eliminated.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
there  are  no  individual  instances  of  discrimination. 
I  do  say  that  there  are  no  more  of  these  than  may  be 
found  throughout  the  country.  The  South  is  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  any  other  section.  I  know  of 
individuals  who  have  steadily  refused  to  register,  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  they  wanted  to  nurse  and 
display  a  sentimental  personal  grievance.  These  men 


The  Negro  in  Politics  357 

should  follow  the  example  of  more  candid  members 
of  the  race.  They  should  address  their  complaints 
to  the  inherent  lethargy  of  their  people,  rather  than 
to  the  acumen  of  the  white  man  who  has  merely  been 
wise  enough  to  profit  by  a  racial  characteristic  of  the 
Negro  masses. 

No  longer  opposed  at  the  polls  the  white  man  turned 
his  attention  to  the  primary,  and  became  as  apathetic 
at  general  elections  as  the  few  remaining  qualified 
Negroes.*  The  smallness  of  the  consequent  vote 
needed  an  explanation  away  from  home.  It  was 
speedily  forthcoming,  in  the  form  of  absurd  theories 
of  the  substitution  of  modern  fraud  for  Reconstruction 
force,  of  the  operation  of  "understanding  clauses"  in 
lieu  of  the  persuasion  of  more  violent  means.  With 
the  falling  off  of  Southern  votes  there  was  revived  the 
demand  for  the  reduction  of  Southern  representation. 
Through  it  all  there  runs  the  same  fanciful  notion  that 
tens  of  thousands  of  qualified  Negroes  are  illegally  kept 
from  the  polls.  How  queer  are  the  operations  of  our 
minds  when  we  want  to  believe  or  disbelieve  a  given 
thing.  All  of  us  know  that  one  of  the  greatest  diffi 
culties  encountered  by  the  American  politician,  whether 
ward  boss  or  head  of  a  national  campaign,  is  to  "get 


*  At  the  Democratic  primary  election  in  Mississippi  in  1903,  to  nominate  a 
candidate  for  governor,  with  two  men  in  the  field  99,281  votes  were  cast:  at 
the  regular  election  which  followed,  with  no  opposition  candidate,  but  32,191 
Democrats  went  to  the  polls.  The  total  registered  vote  in  Mississippi  is  about 
133,000.  Of  these  about  17,000  are  negroes.  At  the  last  national  election  but 
53,376  votes  were  cast  for  the  Democratic  electors,  and  but  3,189  for  the  Repub 
lican.  The  Populists,  an  absolutely  negligible  quantity  in  Mississippi,  by 
creating  here  and  there  a  little  interest  in  their  ticket,  polled  nearly  half  as 
many  votes  as  the  Republicans. 


358     The  American  Race  Problem 

out  the  vote."  We  like  to  hug  the  delusion  that  the 
"sacred  birthright"  of  the  American  citizen  is  a  cher 
ished  possession  which  he  likes  to  exercise  on  all  proper 
occasions.  But  this  too  is  a  conceit  of  fancy.  The 
real  trouble  is  found  in  inducing  the  non-professional 
voter  to  go  to  the  polls  in  anything  approaching  his 
proper  strength.  And  with  the  imposition  of  even 
the  requirement  of  registration  there  is  an  invariable 
falling  off  of  votes.  We  know  this,  and  accept  it  or 
deplore  it,  or  strive  to  overcome  it,  as  our  dispositions 
and  interests  may  determine.  Only  in  the  case  of  the 
Negro  do  we  attempt  to  keep  up  the  fiction  of  an  im 
mense  number  of  men  devoid  of  political  apathy, 
eagerly  anxious  to  vote,  and  only  prevented  by  devious 
means. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  Negro  suffrage  was  the 
most  artificial  creation  ever  known  to  our  history. 
The  only  natural  thing  about  it  was  its  death.  It 
could  not  be  kept  alive  by  normal  means.  Just  as  the 
Reconstruction  governments  fell  to  pieces  like  card 
houses  as  soon  as  the  artificial  prop  of  Federal  power 
was  removed  by  Hayes,  so  Negro  suffrage  could  not 
survive  the  first  legal  test  imposed  upon  it  by  its  op 
ponents.  We  may  force  the  ballot  upon  whom  we 
please  in  this  free  country,  but  further  than  this  we 
cannot  go.  We  cannot  insure  its  intelligent  use  by 
persons  not  intelligent ;  we  cannot  insure  its  honest  use 
by  persons  without  a  sense  of  political  morality ;  we  can 
not  insure  its  retention  by  those  to  whom  we  have  given 
it,  if  they  were  not  ready  to  receive  it,  or  if  the  grant 


The  Negro  in  Politics  359 

vvas  unwisely  bestowed.  Any  state  in  the  Union  might 
give  the  ballot  to  children  fifteen  years  of  age,  but  no 
state  could  guarantee  its  proper  use  in  childish  hands. 
And  the  Negro  in  the  mass  is  still  a  child,  and  for 
some  generations  to  come  may  so  remain.  One  of 
the  shrewdest  men  identified  with  the  race,  and  one 
of  the  most  outspoken,  goes  even  further.  He  says^ 
that  the  Negro  is  a  "political  baby."  Those  who 
habitually  think  of  Negro  suffrage  as  a  peculiarly 
Southern  affair,  and  declare  that  it  is  not  a  failure 
because  not  fairly  tried,  might  learn  something  from 
this  Afro-American  editor  and  publicist,  Mr.  T.  Thomas 
Fortune.  He-  asks,  what  standing  has  the  "Afro- 
American  vote"  in  the  North  and  West?  and  thus 
answers  his  own  question:  "It  has  no  standing:  it  is 
never  consulted;  it  gets  nothing  but  crumbs  from  party 
success.  A  few  offices  of  the  lowest  grade  are  here 
and  there  given  to  it,  for  the  most  part  such  offices  as 
white  partisans  do  not  want.  I  say  this  with  knowledge 
that  conditions  are  a  shade  better  in  Massachusetts, 
Ohio,  and  Illinois,  where  frequently  an  elective  position 
in  a  black  ward  or  district  is  conceded;  but  on  the 
whole  the  same  outrageous  condition  of  affairs  prevails 
in  all  of  the  states  of  the  North  and  West.  And  the 
Afro- American  who  points  out  this  condition  and  pro 
tests  against  it  and  condemns  it  as  being  idiotically 
stupid  if  not  criminal,  is  distrusted  by  his  own  people 
and  by  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party,  often  being 
branded  as  'a  traitor  and  ingrate.'  The  Afro- American 
people  are  like  a  giant  in  bulk  and  a  child  in  strength; 


360     The  American  Race  Problem 

or  they  have  the  strength  of  a  giant  and  use  it  as  a 
child.  It  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  In  the  cities 
of  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Cleveland,  India 
napolis,  and  Chicago  the  handful  of  Italians  or  other 
foreign  contingent  have  more  weight  in  the  councils 
of  the  Republican  party  and  get  more  substantial  con- 
^sideration  in  the  matter  of  party  favours  than  the 
Afro- Americans,  without  whose  vote  in  most  of  those 
cities  the  party  would  very  generally  be  in  a  minority. 
The  Afro-Americans  of  the  Northern  and  Western 
states  should  put  some  common  sense  into  their  voting. 
Surely  their  low,  degraded  political  condition  to-day 
should  convince  them  that  they  are  a  political  giant 
with  the  strength  of  a  child,  and  that  a  race  in  that 
condition  will  get  nothing  out  of  politics  but  sneers  and 
contempt.  When  a  man  is  a  man  he  should  think 
and  act  as  a  man  in  politics  and  everything  else;  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  Afro-American  people  are  the  only 
race  element  of  the  American  citizenship  which  habitu 
ally  thinks  and  acts  the  baby  in  politics."* 

From  Professor  Kelly  Miller's  relation  of  his  obser 
vations  on  a  trip  among  his  Southern  brethren  we 
may  secure  valuable  testimony  as  to  conditions  in  an 
other  quarter.  He  says:  "Only  a  few  with  whom 
politics  is  a  business  seem  to  take  interest  in  the  sub 
ject.  This  number  is  rapidly  diminishing.  There  is 
little  or  no  political  interest  among  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  race.  Agitation  of  this  question  is  almost  like 

*  "The  Afro-American  Political  Giant  with  the  Strength  of  a  Child,"  T 
Thomas  Fortune,  Coloured  American  Magazine,  Dec.  1905,  pp.  678,679.  See 
also  by  the  same  author,  "The  Negro  in  Politics,"  New  York,  1886. 


^^Giollfc 
OF  THE 


The  Negro  in  Politics  361 

driving  spurs  into  a  dead  horse.  In  Texas,  Arkansas, 
and  Tennessee  every  voter  is  ostensibly  as  free  to 
exercise  his  franchise  as  he  is  in  New  England.  And 
yet  very  few  meet  the  paltry  requirement  of  a  poll  tax. 
In  Alabama  there  are  less  than  three  thousand  Negro 
qualified  voters.  Even  under  the  severities  of  the 
revised  constitutions  and  the  unfairness  of  registration 
offices  there  ought  to  be  at  least  ten  times  as  many 
as  are  now  on  the  list.  Indifference  more  than  any 
other  cause  accounts  for  this  condition.  'What  is 
the  use?'  is  the  universal  response  to  the  inquiry  con 
cerning  this  political  inactivity.  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  coloured  race  in  Texas,  Florida,  Georgia,  and  Kan 
sas  (Arkansas),  where  the  state  constitutions  have  not 
been  revised,  is  losing  by  default  the  right  of  which 
they  have  been  violently  bereft  in  the  more  stringent 
Southern  states.  I  suppose  that  I  must  have  asked 
a  hundred  men  in  different  sections  if  they  were  in  the 
habit  of  voting,  and  was  compelled  to  take  no  for  an 
answer.  Revised  constitutions,  white  primaries  and 
the  lily  whites  form  the  conventional  excuse.  A 
Washington  friend  of  mine  who  is  a  loud  and  persis 
tent  advocate  of  the  ballot  as  the  Negro's  only  salva 
tion  retains  his  legal  residence  in  a  Southern  state 
whose  constitution  has  not  been  revised;  and  yet  he  has 
not  voted  for  fifteen  years."* 

If  we  may  believe  the  evidence  of  these  two  eminent 
and  competent  members  of  the  race,  Negro  suffrage 
is  not  only  dead  where  it  was  a  failure;  it  is  a  failure 

*  "A  Circuit  of  the  South,"  Kelly  Miller,  Voice  of  theNegro,  Sept.  1906,  p.  665. 


362     The  American  Race  Problem 

where  it  still  survives.  We  might  add  the  testimony 
of  a  prominent  Northern  newspaper  man  as  to  the 
attitude  of  the  plantation  Negro  toward  the  question 
of  suffrage.  From  the  observation  of  a  number  of 
years  we  can  confirm  the  following  from  Mr.  Raymond 
Patterson  of  the  Chicago  Tribune:  "I  could  not  dis 
cover  that  the  plantation  Negroes  with  whom  I  talked 
had  the  slightest  desire  to  vote,  and  even  the  most 
casual  observation  would  convince  one  that  if  they 
had  the  right  of  suffrage  they  would  sell  it  to  the  highest 
bidder  without  the  slightest  compunction,  and  the 
white  people  in  the  vicinity  understand  this  so  well 
that  they  are  prepared,  if  the  Federal  Government  or 
other  public  opinion  once  more  forces  suffrage  upon 
the  Negro,  to  buy  it  back  again  at  the  current  market 
rates  and  charge  it  up  to  the  ordinary  labour  account 
of  the  plantation."* 

But  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  the  Negro  in 
politics  is  really  dead.  In  many  places  he  is  very  much 
alive,  and  proves  himself  capable  of  creating  all  sorts 
of  troublesome  situations  for  his  Caucasian  allies.  At 
a  recent  election  in  Chicago  the  Negroes  demanded 
representation  on  the  city  ticket.  They  were  per 
mitted  to  name  one  of  the  judges,  and  to  the  discom 
fiture  of  the  white  party  their  candidate  was  elected. 
At  least  it  seemed  so  on  the  face  of  the  returns,  though 
he  ran  some  30,000  votes  behind  the  next  lowest  man 
on  the  ticket.  Just  as  he  was  receiving  the  congratu- 


*  "Paradise  for  the  Negro,"  Raymond  Patterson,  On  Conditions  in  'Louisi 
ana,  Washington  Post,  July  19,  1903. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  363 

lations  of  "the  race"  throughout  the  country,  the 
Chicago  Republicans  found  a  way  out  of  their  predica 
ment,  and  a  white  man  was  seated  in  his  stead.  Prob 
ably  it  is  such  instances  as  these,  in  recent  years  too 
common  to  excite  comment,  that  cause  Mr.  Fortune 
to  feel  as  he  does  about  the  situation  north  of  the  line. 
It  is  likewise  a  mistake  to  conclude  that  the  Negro 
is  no  longer  a  potential  power  for  evil  in  Southern 
politics.  Just  so  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it  is 
will  white  men  be  found  whose  one  controlling  motive 
in  political  affairs  is  the  lowest  form  of  selfish  ambition. 
The  lust  of  power  and  the  spoils  of  ofHce  are  still  deter 
mining  forces  in  shaping  the  conduct  of  many  men  in 
public  life.  To  such  as  these  the  Negro  vote  offers 
an  attractive  field  for  exploitation,  and  is  taken  ad 
vantage  of  by  politicians  without  regard  to  party. 
The  average  Negro  is  a  cheaper  voter  than  the  white 
man.  His  vote  may  generally  be  counted  on  to  go 
en  masse.  He  is  more  easily  "handled"  and  intimi 
dated,  and  less  apt  to  "cause  trouble."  He  is  usually 
without  any  sort  of  higher  public  opinion  behind  him, 
to  act  as  an  impelling  force  to  proper  civic  conduct. 
He  is  generally  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of  those  who  seek 
to  break  up  corrupt  municipal  machines.  Just  as  he 
is  thus  used  by  white  and  mulatto  politicians  in  Northern 
cities,  so  has  he  been  used  time  and  again  in  Southern 
states.  His  pliability  makes  him  specially  valuable 
in  controlling  a  balance  of  power,  and  his  greatest 
potential  harm  to  the  Southern  white  man  and  him 
self  by  no  means  depends  upon  a  Negro  majority. 


364     The  American  Race  Problem 

To  respectable  people  in  the  South  the  most  offensive 
use  of  the  ballot  ever  made  by  the  Negro,  as  likewise 
the  most  vicious  use  ever  made  of  the  Negro  by  un 
scrupulous  white  men,  has  been  in  deciding  issues  be 
tween  white  men  themselves.*  And  to  do  this  a 
majority  is  not  necessary  —  only  capable  and  unscrup 
ulous  leadership  and  a  willing  and  irresponsible  tool. 

The  South  has  often  been  congratulated  upon  the 
usually  decent  methods  which  obtain  in  her  local  poli 
tics.  But  this  section  has  also  produced  its  share  of 
the  most  abject  political  depravity.  The  Southern 
white  man,  who  is  necessarily  acquainted  with  the 
consequences  of  his  conduct,  but  who  in  defiance  of 
such  results  seeks  to  fatten  upon  the  inherent  political 
viciousness  of  the  Negro  masses,  is  much  more  vicious 
and  dangerous  than  the  Negroes  whom  he  leads.  He 
is  usually  cowardly  as  well.  He  generally  manages 
to  escape  the  legitimate  penalty  of  his  acts,  while  the 
Negro  plays  the  part  of  the  vicarious  sufferer,  as  he  has 
since  1867  wherever  he  has  entered  the  political  field. 

It  is  difficult  to  read  with  patience  some  of  the  utter 
ances  of  Southern  men,  who  have  not  the  excuse  of 
ignorance,  on  the  subject  of  the  political  supremacy 
of  the  white  man.  In  entire  disregard  of  the  elemen 
tary  facts  and  history  of  the  operation  of  Negro  suffrage 
in  the  South,  they  tell  how  this  or  that  state  is  now 


*  There  recently  came  from  Kentucky  the  report  that  1,100  Negroes  had 
been  registered  as  Democrats  in  a  close  precinct,  and  their  certificates  bought 
at  $2  each.  It  is  said  that  these  voters  were  used  in  the  following  Senatorial 
race.  Whether  true  or  not  in  this  instance,  similar  things  have  frequently 
been  done. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  365 

rid  of  all  danger  from  the  Negro  in  political  life.  It  is 
doubtful  if  there  is  a  state  in  the  South  which  would 
not  be  largely  controlled  by  Negro  voters  if  the  white 
people  in  it  were  to  divide  among  themselves.  It  has 
not  been  eight  years  since  the  country  was  horrified 
at  the  racial  political  outbreak  in  North  Carolina. 
The  preceding  census  (1890)  showed  but  561,018  Negroes 
in  the  state,  as  against  1,055,382  whites.  The  Negroes 
were  thus  but  34.7  per  cent,  of  the  total  population. 
Out  of  ninety-seven  counties  in  the  state  there  were 
only  sixteen  in  which  the  Negro  formed  as  much  as 
50  per  cent,  of  the  total  population.  Yet  as  a  result 
of  a  division  among  the  white  people,  and  a  combina 
tion  of  Populists,  Republicans,  and  Negroes,  the  latter 
gained  partial  control  of  the  state,  and  a  period  of 
corruption  and  riot  ensued  which  became  as  intolerable 
as  anything  during  Reconstruction  days.  The  cul 
mination  was  a  bloody  conflict  along  racial  lines,  with 
the  usual  inevitable  result.  The  decent  people  of  the 
state  gained  control,  and  another  amended  constitution 
was  added  to  the  honour  roll  of  Southern  efforts  to 
insure  white  supremacy  without  resort  to  violence  or 
fraud.* 

I  have  sometimes  alluded  to  the  force  of  the  motive 
of  apprehension  as  a  controlling  factor  in  determining 

*  For  an  excellent  account  of  the  political  conditions  which  brought  on  this 
conflict  see  Mr.  Henry  Litchfield  West's  "The  Race  War  in  North  Carolina," 
Forum,  Jan.  1899.  pp.  578,  et  seq.,  quoted  from  below.  For  a  presentation 
of  the  case  by  a  prominent  figure  in  the  overthrow  of  Negro  rule  in  Wilmington 
see  Colonel  Alfred  M.  Waddell's  account  in  the  publications  of  the  Montgomery 
Conference  on  Race  Problems  in  the  South,  1900.  See  also  A.  J.  McKelway 
and  Kelly  Miller,  Outlook,  Dec.  31,  1898.  These  papers  should  be  read  by  any 
one  seriously  interested  in  the  political  aspect  of  the  problem  of  race  relations. 


366     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  white  man's  attitude  toward  the  Negro.  He  knows 
the  possibility  for  evil  of  the  Negro  in  politics;  and  if 
he  is  not  an  enthusiastic  optimist  he  can  see  clearly 
enough  that  while  the  Negro  masses  have  been  politi 
cally  eliminated  in  a  temporary  sense,  their  potential 
power  for  evil  has  by  no  means  disappeared.  The 
alluvial  district  of  which  the  writer's  county  forms  a 
part  in  1900  contained  218,392  Negroes  and  40,502 
white  people.  The  number  of  Negro  males  twenty-one 
years  of  age  was  57,315,  or  16,813  more  than  the  total 
white  population.  Of  these  28,643  were  literates, 
and  on  payment  of  a  poll  tax  could  register  and  vote 
under  the  Mississippi  constitution.  Thus  the  number 
of  potential  Negro  voters  was  equal  to  nearly  71  per 
cent,  of  the  combined  white  population,  men,  women, 
and  children,  in  an  area  of  about  6,000  square  miles. 
There  is  no  probability  that  the  Negro  will  ever  be 
a  controlling  factor  in  the  politics  of  this  section.  But 
let  a  division  arise  among  the  white  people,  and  there 
is  no  more  doubt  that  these  Negroes  would  be  regis 
tered  and  voted,  and  would  control  by  sheer  force  of 
numbers,  than  there  is  that  they  will  never  care  one 
iota  about  voting  if  only  let  alone.  There  is  also  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  within  a  very  short  time  the 
Negro  would  again  cease  to  be  a  political  factor,  and 
conditions  would  resume  their  normal  course,  with 
the  added  injection  of  a  racial  bitterness  which  just 
now  does  not  exist.  The  people  who  comprise  the 
intelligence  and  honesty  of  a  community,  who  pay 
its  taxes  and  support  its  government  and  guarantee 


The  Negro  in  Politics  367 

it  against  internal  disorders,  will  control  its  politics 
and  administer  its  affairs.  And  the  question  of  mere 
numerical  majority  will  not  even  be  considered  in  ar 
riving  at  the  result. 

It  may  be  replied  that  this  proposition  holds  good 
everywhere.  In  fact  it  is  often  said  that  inasmuch 
as  the  intelligence  of  any  country  or  section  will  control 
its  affairs,  there  is  neither  foundation  nor  reason  for 
the  Southern  apprehension  of  the  Negro  in  politics. 
The  two  propositions  have  a  different  meaning.  We 
may  safely  say  that  the  honesty  and  intelligence  of 
New  York  may  be  depended  upon  to  control  its  pol 
itics  in  the  long  run.  This  is  true  only  because  the 
"average"  white  voter  is  not  venal,  and  because  the 
best  men,  in  point  of  character  and  ability,  will  not 
permit  the  rule  of  corruption  beyond  a  certain  point. 
In  the  lace  of  intolerable  conditions  party  lines  in 
variably  disappear,  and  no  corrupt  combination  of 
political  thieves  has  ever  been  able  to  more  than  tem 
porarily  defeat  a  combination  of  political  honesty. 

But  it  is  idle  to  attempt  to  apply  the  same  rule  to 
Southern  conditions,  and  expect  to  obtain  the  same 
end  by  the  same  means  in  the  face  of  the  situation 
which  exists  by  virtue  of  the  political  solidarity  of  the 
Negro.  When  the  respectable  white  men  of  a  Southern 
community,  county,  or  state  find  themselves  confronted 
by  a  numerical  preponderance  of  Negroes,  upon  whom 
are  they  to  call  for  assistance?  They  represent  the 
intelligence  of  their  state;  they  pay  its  taxes  and  support 
its  institutions  and  government.  They  are  opposed 


368     The  American  Race  Problem 

by  a  mass  of  Negroes  who,  with  few  exceptions,  are 
inherently  ignorant,  though  they  may  read  and  write, 
who  own  little  property  and  pay  little  taxes,  who  are 
utterly  unfit  for  political  control,  and  who  are  led  by 
unscrupulous  white  men  equally  as  irresponsible  and 
much  more  vicious  than  themselves. 

Here  are  the  two  elements  in  the  body  politic  of  the 
South  to-day,  and  yet  men  wonder  why  the  South 
does  not  divide  on  political  issues.  The  "Solid  South" 
simply  represents  the  permanent  banding  together  of 
its  best  elements  for  good  government,  just  as  such 
combinations  of  the  better  elements  in  New  York  are 
made  temporarily  necessary  from  time  to  time.  .There 
has  not  been  an  instance  of  local  or  state  division  in 
the  ranks  of  the  respectable  white  people  in  the  South 
which  has  not  been  followed  by  disastrous  results. 
Booker  Washington  knows  that  the  Negro  will  not 
take  the  advice  of  his  white  neighbour  in  matters  of 
local  political  concern.  Other  Negro  le'aders  know  it, 
and  Northern  white  men  like  the  late  William  H.  Bald 
win  know  it.  The  Southern  white  man  knows  it.  He 
knows  more,  for  bitter  experience  has  taught  him  that, 
save  with  insignificant  exceptions,  the  Negro  will  not 
only  vote  solidly  against  him  on  matters  of  purely 
local  business  concern,  but  that  he  will  sell  himself 
body  and  soul  to  any  political  charlatan  who  will  stoop 
low  enough  to  fill  his  ears  with  false  promises  and  to 
inspire  him  with  racial  hate.  It  is  almost  a  Southern 
axiom  that  a  white  man  cannot  remain  respectable, 
cannot  retain  his  own  self-respect,  and  at  the  same 


The  Negro  in  Politics  369 

time  control  the  Negro  vote.  This  does  not  mean, 
and  it  must  not  be  so  understood,  that  no  Southern 
Negroes  will  vote  for  decent  men  or  go  with  the  respect 
able  element  of  white  people  on  local  political  affairs. 
It  emphatically  does  mean  that  the  number  who  will 
do  this  are  a  negligible  handful,  who,  furthermore, 
incur  the  enmity  and  displeasure  of  the  masses  by  such 
exhibitions  of  "disloyalty."  The  greatest  Bourbon 
in  America  to-day  is  the  Negro  in  politics,  North  or 
South. 

From  1867  to  the  overthrow  of  the  carpetbag  govern 
ments  in  1875-76,  the  Southern  white  man  saw  the 
Negro  go  en  masse  against  him,  right  or  wrong,  as 
Councill  puts  it.  In  searching  for  means  to  save  his 
interests  and  his  state  from  utter  destruction,  the 
white  man  then  tried  the  experiment  of  taking  the 
Negro  into  political  partnership  with  himself.  This 
was  the  essence  of  the  "fusion"  system,  under  which 
the  Negro  was  given  a  place  on  local  tickets.  It  meant 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  purchase  of  Negro  sup 
port,  or  Negro  acquiescence,  by  giving  to  individual 
mulattoes  a  local  office  here  and  there.  The  only 
effect  was  to  keep  the  Negro  masses  in  a  continuous 
political  turmoil,  without  the  least  resulting  benefit 
to  themselves.  There  was  perpetual  strife  among 
their  mulatto  leaders  as  to  which  ones  were  to  receive 
the  offices  which  the  white  man  conceded  as  the  price 
of  being  permitted  to  control  his  domestic  affairs. 
The  last  remnant  of  "fusionism"  disappeared  with  the 
elimination  of  the  Negro  masses  from  politics  by  modern 


37° 


The  American  Race  Problem 


constitutional  provisions.  The  qualified  Negro  voters 
were  reduced  to  an  innocuous  minority,  and  the  neces 
sity  for  purchasing  the  leaders  no  longer  existing,  the 
latter  ceased  to  figure  in  local  affairs. 

This  has  been  the  Southern  white  man's  experience 
with  the  Negro  in  politics.  He  has  never  been  able, 
save  on  rare  occasions,  to  make  any  responsive  appeal 
to  the  Negro  voter  which  was  not  addressed  directly 
to  the  cupidity  of  his  leaders.  Immediately  after  the 
war  a  few  of  the  old  school  Southern  leaders  believed 
it  possible  for  them  to  control  and  influence  the  Negro 
voter  toward  safe  participation  in  administering  decent 
government.  But  these  were  the  very  men  who  above 
all  others  were  proscribed  by  those  in  control  of  Federal 
affairs.  They,  more  than  any  other  class  in  the  South, 
were  felt  to  be  unsafe  custodians  of  the  Negro's  interests. 
Despite  all  this  these  men  made  many  earnest  attempts 
to  influence  the  Negro  for  good.  But  their  efforts 
were  defeated,  or  only  in  small  measure  were  temporar 
ily  and  occasionally  successful.  When  men  in  another 
political  environment  speak  of  appealing  to  the  instinc 
tive  sense  of  right  and  better  judgment  inherent  in 
the  body  politic  of  the  state,  they  aje  discussing  an 
entirely  different  proposition  from  that  which  con 
fronts  the  Southern  white  man.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of 
appealing  to  something  which  does  not  exist  in  the  Negro 
masses.  The  capacity  for  self-government  is  a  slow 
growth  at  best.  Under  the  artificial  and  abnormal  con 
ditions  which  have  obtained  since  the  Negro's  emancipa 
tion  it  promises  in  his  case  to  be  almost  hopelessly  so. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  371 

Only  a  few  months  ago  Mr.  Taft  delivered  an  address 
at  Tuskegee  Institute,  in  which  he  touched  on  the 
Negro  in  politics.  He  gave  the  restrictive  constitutions 
of  Southern  states  a  quasi  endorsement,  but  added  a 
note  of  encouragement  to  the  effect  that  it  was  im 
possible  to  frame  a  suffrage  test  which  would  be  allowed 
to  stand  by  the  supreme  court  which  the  Negro  could 
not  ultimately  meet.  It  is  the  usual  comment  of  those 
inclined  to  look  with  leniency  upon  the  South's  efforts 
to  legally  eliminate  the  Negro  masses  from  politics, 
that  all  the  North  asks  is  that  suffrage  restrictions  be 
impartially  applied.  In  Mr.  Baldwin's  words:  "He 
should  be  (disfranchised)  if  he  is  not  properly  qualified 
to  cast  a  vote;  but  his  qualifications  should  be  deter 
mined  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  the  qualifications 
of  the  white  man;  and  to  this  the  Negro  has  no  objec 
tion."* 

Here  we  have  again  the  confusing  of  the  concrete 
Negro  with  his  abstract  attributes.  Human  law  does 
not,  cannot,  create  the  capacity  for  self-government, 
the  possession  of  which  we  seek  to  evidence  by  certain 
tangible  tests  which  we  loosely  call  "qualifications." 
The  law  cannot  qualify  a  man  to  vote.  It  may  require 
an  exhibit  of  certain  crude  evidences  of  qualification, 
or  it  may  dispense  with  these  altogether.  This  problem 
of  framing  a  test  for  self-governing  capacity  is  one  of 
the  most  serious  which  confronts  a  government  such  as 
ours  —  one  in  which  so  much  depends  upon  the  self- 
governing  individual.  Its  gravity  increases  or  dimi- 

*  Second  Capi  n  Springs  Conference.     1899,  p.  98. 


372     The  American  Race  Problem 

nishes  with  the  degree  of  homogeneity  in  the  mass  of 
the  population.  In  the  effort  to  secure  a  test  which 
shall  be  uniform  we  usually  fall  back  on  some  form  of 
property  or  educational  qualification.  In  view  of  the 
necessarily  limited  and  narrow  application  of  the  edu 
cational  qualification  it  is  probable  that  the  test  of 
property  is  really  the  more  valuable  of  the  two.  From 
the  acquisition  and  possession  of  property,  particularly 
land  or  a  home,  we  are  usually  safe  in  assuming  certain 
homely  virtues,  such  as  make  for  conservatism  and 
good  citizenship. 

But  we  attach  too  much  significance  to  our  so-called 
educational  qualifications.  There  is  no  American  con 
stitution  which  in  fact  requires  a  test  of  education. 
At  most  they  only  require  the  ability  to  read  and  write. 
This  is  a  mere  kindergarten  examination,  but  it  is 
almost  impracticable  to  provide,  define,  or  apply  any 
thing  more  exacting.  Yet  there  is  no  magic,  no  subtle 
alchemy,  arising  from  the  ability  to  scrawl  one's  name, 
or  drone  the  pages  of  a  book,  capable  of  transmuting 
barbarism  into  civilisation.  Pen  and  ink  and  book, 
powerful  as  they  are,  cannot  transform  the  savage  of 
yesterday  into  the  citizen  of  to-day. 

The  capacity  for  self-government  is  not  a  grant  of 
law,  but  a  growth  of  the  mind.  It  comes  with  the  slow 
processes  of  time,  through  the  long  groping  after  light 
and  strength  which  in  spite  of  a  thousand  difficulties 
and  failures  has  given  the  higher  branches  of  the  white 
race  dominion  over  themselves,  which  is  the  essence 
of  a  government  of  law  and  the  foundation  of  the  arti- 


The  Negro  in  Politics  373 

ficial  self-governing  superstructure.  The  so-called  re 
publican  form  of  government  in  this  country,  and  the 
limited  constitutional  monarchy  of  Great  Britain 
represent  the  highest  practical  expression  of  the  self- 
governing  idea.  They  would  be  impossible  of  main 
tenance  by  an  electorate  whose  sole  qualifying  capacity 
was  determinable  by  certain  established  formal  tests. 
A  self-governing  state  is  founded  upon  the  slowly 
developed  capacity  of  its  people  for  the  form  which 
they  themselves  create,  not  upon  any  artificially  deter 
mined  capacity  which  it  imparts  to  its  creators.  Be 
cause  we  do  not  think  it  wise  to  share  this  tediously 
developed  responsibility  undiscriminatingly,  we  grad 
ually  evolve  certain  tests  which  we  apply  to  those 
who  seek  it.  But  we  mistake  the  true  import  of  such 
measures  of  capacity  if  we  attribute  to  them  a  signifi 
cance  which  they  do  not  really  possess.  A  child  of 
ten  may  read  more  fluently  than  a  man  of  fifty,  or 
the  latter  may  not  read  at  all.  But  the  child's  capacity 
does  not  mean  the  possession  of  greater  wisdom  than 
may  have  been  acquired  by  the  longer  and  larger  ex 
perience  of  the  man. 

In  order  to  be  of  any  real  value  such  tests  must  pre 
suppose  the  same  general  potential  capacity  and  attri 
butes  among  all  to  whom  they  are  applied  and  whose 
degree  of  development  they  are  assumed  to  indicate. 
Between  the  masses  of  the  English-speaking  white  race 
and  those  of  the  American  Negro,  no  artificial  test  can 
indicate  the  possession  of  the  same  measure  of  capacity 
for  self-government,  It  is  idle  to  talk  about  "deter- 


374     The  American  Race  Problem 

mining  in  exactly  the  same  manner  the  qualifications" 
of  two  masses  possessing  such  different  racial  histories 
and  backgrounds,  as  well  as  such  widely  different  devel 
opments,  as  those  which  characterise  the  white  man 
and  the  Negro. 

It  is  a  common  charge  against  modern  Southern 
constitutions  that  they  are  so  framed  as  to  admit  the 
illiterate  white  man  while  excluding  the  illiterate  Negro. 
The  Negro  masses  in  fact  do  not  have  to  be  excluded. 
They  will  disfranchise  themselves,  if  left  to  their  own 
devices.  But  what  if  the  charge  were  true?  There 
was  no  developed  system  of  public  schools  in  the  South 
before  the  war,  and  these  states  contained,  and  do 
contain,  a  large  number  of  illiterate  white  men.  It 
would  be  foolish  to  contend  that  all  these  are  capable 
of  intelligent  voting.  It  would  be  more  absurd  to 
class  them  as  "ignorant"  because  illiterate.  It  would 
be  stupid  to  attempt  to  institute  a  parallel  between 
their  average  of  intelligence  and  capacity  and  that 
of  the  Negro  masses  in  the  same  technical  classification. 
The  very  fact  that  these  men  are  white,  aside  from 
their  common  race  inheritance,  tells  strongly  in  favour 
of  potential  intelligence.  It  guarantees  association 
and  contact  with  others  of  the  same  race  who  have 
enjoyed  greater  advantages,  and  from  whom  the  less 
fortunate  absorb  much  that  is  even  denied  the  so- 
called  educated  Negro  in  the  mass.  We  simply  attempt 
the  unattainable  when  we  try  to  devise  a  test  which 
will  apply  equally  to  the  two  races,  as  a  mechanical 
index  to  equal  political  instinct  and  capacity. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  375 

We  talk  loosely  of  the  failure  of  Negro  suffrage  under 
popular  government,  but  how  many  stop  to  reason 
from  the  fact  to  its  cause?  We  are  too  content,  in  all 
this  race  problem  business  of  ours,  to  discuss  and  dis 
pute  over  its  elementary  facts.  We  do  not  seem  so 
much  inclined  to  work  out  the  significance  of  the  facts 
themselves.  We  might  learn  much  from  a  study  of 
African  tribal  polity.  It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
the  native  Negro  had  no  laws,  and  knew  no  govern 
mental  form.  Both  are  part  of  his  racial  heritage. 
But  despite  surface  exceptions,  African  native  polity 
was  at  the  farthest  possible  remove  from  the  basis 
of  a  self-governing  concept.  The  only  real  force  and 
stability  which  such  governments  possessed  was  derived 
from  the  opportunity  afforded  for  the  occasional  acces 
sion  to  power  of  a  man  of  exceptional  individual  capacity. 
The  whole  race  history  is  opposed  to  the  development 
of  the  self-governing  idea.  The  race  instinctively 
accommodates  itself  to  a  "strong"  government, 
and  seems  peculiarly  fitted  for  accepting  and  adapting 
itself  to  one  in  which  an  individual  personal  represen 
tative  stands  for  the  governing  authority. 

Even  the  limited  effort  at  equal  suffrage  under  a  rep 
resentative  form  of  government  which  Jamaica  once 
tried,  proved  a  disastrous  failure.  The  Jamaica  Negro 
was  never  better  off,  and  he  was  never  better  satisfied, 
than  under  the  benevolent  despotism  of  Sir  John  Peter 
Grant,  which  followed  the  first  experiment.  I  once 
asked  an  educated,  observant  American  Negro  in 
Bermuda  what  he  regarded  as  the  most  important 


376     The  American  Race  Problem 

influence  for  good  upon  the  life  of  the  English  Negro, 
and  upon  race  relations  in  the  English  islands.  With 
out  a  moment's  hesitation  he  replied,  "The  Crown." 
The  visible,  tangible  representative  of  power  makes  a 
distinct  and  responsive  appeal  to  the  Negro  mind, 
while  the  conception  of  his  government  as  one  lodged 
in  an  individual  personality  is  easily  grasped,  and  is 
invaluable  as  a  controlling  force. 

Speaking  of  West  Indian  Negroes  Mr.  Colquhoun 
says:  "In  the  long  reign  of  the  late  Queen  Victoria 
she  became  to  them  a  sort  of  supernatural  ruler,  as 
much  part  of  their  traditions  as  the  hereditary  heroes 
and  chiefs  of  other  nations."*  There  was  much  that 
gave  rise  to  a  similar  mental  attitude  in  the  form  of 
government  and  administration  of  the  Southern  ante 
bellum  plantation  system,  and  in  it  much  that  appealed 
to  the  Negro's  racial  instincts  and  traits.  The  owner 
was  the  immediate  embodiment  of  authority  in  the 
plantation  world.  He  stood  in  loco  parentis  to  all  his 
people,  and  became  to  their  minds  as  much  a  tribal 
chief  and  ruler  as  they  and  their  ancestors  had  ever 
known  at  home.  There  was  no  violent  alteration  of 
the  abstract  governing  idea  or  system  involved  in  the 
transition  from  the  tribal  to  the  plantation  organisation. 
The  native  mind  accepted  the  change  unconsciously 
and  hence  without  protest,  and  the  Negro  was  adopted 
without  friction  into  his  new  environment.  On  some 
plantations  in  both  the  South  and  the  West  Indies 
the  germs  of  self-governing  capacity  had  an  opportunity 

*  "The  Africander  Land,"  A.  R.  Colquhoun.     1906,  p.  104. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  377 

to  develop  in  the  Negro,  through  the  occasional  institu 
tion  of  plantation  courts  for  adjusting  grievances  among 
themselves.  But  these  were  only  successful  when  the 
planter  or  his  representative  acted  as  a  party  in  power. 
The  order  and  general  wellbeing  among  plantation 
Negroes  to-day  is  in  fairly  exact  ratio  to  the  degree  of 
personal  authority  and  disciplinary  control  exercised 
by  the  plantation  management.  And  relations  are 
best  where  the  system  is  most  paternal  in  its  features. 
For  a  number  of  years  before  the  Civil  War  Negroes 
in  Connecticut  elected  their  "governor,"  who, 
though  of  course  utterly  without  official  recognition, 
at  the  same  time  furnished  a  visible  object  of  authority 
to  his  people.  The  best  governed  body  of  Negroes 
in  this  hemisphere  are  the  African,  or  black,  "Caribs" 
of  some  parts  of  the  Caribbean  coast,  and  their 
titular,  visible,  and  active  head  is  a  "king." 

A  racial  characteristic  which  is  so  familiarly  displayed 
in  the  South  as  to  have  become  commonplace,  is  the 
Negro's  inordinate  love  of  parade  and  show,  his  con 
suming  passion  for  "finery  and  feathers."  A  com 
petent  authority  declares  that  "at  heart  the  Haitians 
are  royalists  to-day;  that  is,  they  prefer  the  pomp  and 
ceremonials  of  courts  to  the  plain  simplicity  of  a  republic. 
They  like  show  and  glitter,  frills  and  furbelows,  gold 
lace  and  epaulets,  cocked  hats  and  cock's  feathers, 
and  it  was  a  sad  day  for  the  masses  when  the  grand 
marshal,  grand  almoner,  master  of  ceremonials,  Knights 
of  Saint  Henry,  'princes  of  the  blood/  dukes,  counts, 
barons,  chevaliers,  etc.,  were  abolished.  But  for  their 


378      The  American  Race  Problem 

inclination  to  reduce  everybody  and  everything  to 
the  dead  level  of  barbarism,  they  would  take  to  a 
reestablishment  of  royalty  as  easily  as  a  duck  to  water."* 

There  is  much  more  than  an  Englishman's  precon 
ceptions  in  the  following  words  from  Mr.  Colquhoun: 
"It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  subject  races, 
whether  in  Africa  or  Asia,  have  the  most  deeply 
rooted  prejudice  in  favour  of  paternal  rule,  and  have 
never  evolved  a  representative,  much  less  a  democratic, 
theory  of  government.  Just  so  far  as  democracy 
attains  its  highest  ideal  in  our  eyes  it  becomes  to  them 
formless  and  ineffective,  "f 

The  most  uncompromising  advocate  of  "Negro 
rights,"  and  the  harshest  critic  of  the  South,  who  has 
held  a  West  Indian  post  in  recent  years  is  Mr.  Sydney 
Olivier,  whom  we  quote  below.  But  even  he  admits 
the  difficulties  of  the  racial  political  problem  as  pre 
sented  and  developed  under  our  form  of  government 
by  written  constitution.  He  says  that  such  difficulties 
cannot  be  met  under  such  a  government  as  they  have 
been  under  a  Crown  Colony,  as  in  Jamaica. 

When  English  writers  wish  a  text  upon  which  to 
frame  a  sermon  on  race  relations  under  the  beneficent 
rule  of  their  Government,  they  generally  take  Jamaica. 
In  other  words,  they  select  the  colony  in  which  the 
incapacity  of  the  Negro  for  self-government  has  been 
frankly  recognised  and  practically  acted  upon.  But 
they  say  little  about  the  period  of  turbulence  and  un- 


*  "Our  West  Indian  Neighbours."     P.  A.  Ober.      1904,  p.  171. 
t  "The  Africander  Land,"  1906  p.  419. 


The  Negro  in  Politics 


379 


rest  through  which  Jamaica  passed  before  the  present 
boasted  state  of  idealism  was  attained.  A  local  author 
ity  says  of  the  present  system  of  government  that  it 
"is  undoubtedly  hybrid  in  character."  "But,"  he 
adds,  "if  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  are  taken 
into  account,  it  possibly  suits  the  condition  of  the 
colony  as  well  as  any  other  that  could  be  devised."* 
This  government,  however,  is  not  one  whit  more 
"hybrid"  in  character  than  is  that  of  the  District  of 
Columbia.  And  "the  circumstances  of  the  case,"  out 
of  which  the  condition  of  hybridity  was  evolved,  were 
in  each  instance  the  same  —  the  presence  of  a  large 
number  of  Negro  voters,  actual  or  potential.  In  each 
case  the  entire  population  was  deprived  of  the  right  of 
self-government,  rather  than  continue  to  face  the 
certainty  of  trouble  arising  from  its  attempted  exercise 
by  a  part  of  the  population  not  fitted  to  enjoy  it.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  administering  of  a  govern 
ment  for  a  mixed  white  and  Negro  population  is  a 
much  simpler  matter  for  Great  Britain  than  for  Con 
tinental  United  States.  It  is  only  in  our  insular  depen 
dencies  that  we  are  on  a  footing  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  in  governing  for  dependent  races.  There,  thanks 
to  an  opinion  which  Mr.  Dooley  declared  "followed 
the  election  returns,"  we  are  as  free  to  experiment  as 
England  is  in  the  West  Indies,  or  as  we  ourselves  are 
in  our  own  national  capital.  And  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  be  equally  as  successful.  It  is 


*  Frank  Cundall,   Secretary,  Jamaica  Institute,   in  British  Empire  Series 
Vol.  3,  "British  America,"  pp.  420,  421. 


380     The  American  Race  Problem 

only  at  home,  where  the  necessity  is  greatest,  that 
we  are  encased  within  the  steel  framework  of  rigid 
constitutional  limitations.  It  is  only  here  that  we 
are  forbidden  to  act  upon  the  evidence  of  history  or 
to  profit  by  experience  and  common  sense.  Only 
here  do  we  have  to  observe  the  form  of  maintaining 
the  fiction  that  there  are  no  differences  between  the 
needs  and  capacities  and  limitations  of  different  races 
of  men.  The  situation  would  be  farcical  if  it  did  not 
occasionally  border  upon  the  tragic  in  its  results. 

It  is  frequently  declared  that  nothing  better  than  the 
present  arrangement  in  this  country  has  been  suggested 
by  its  critics  —  that  the  system  adopted  in  1867-70 
was  the  best  that  could  have  been  devised.  This  is 
superficial.  This  much  only  need  be  suggested  in 
reply:  Even  a  purely  negative  policy  would  have 
been  better  than  the  one  adopted.  Under  the  former, 
with  the  political  status  of  the  Negro  left  with  the 
States,  each  would  have  been  free  to  evolve  an  adjust 
ment  which  would  have  been  satisfactory  to  both  races. 
Beyond  question  this  would  not  have  been  the  same  in 
all  the  states.  The  perniciousness  of  the  present  system 
is  that  it  is  ironclad.  It  leaves  no  room  for  local  and 
individual  adjustment.  Under  the  political  status 
quo  ante  bellum  each  state  would  have  been  at  liberty 
to  experiment  along  its  own  lines,  and,  above  all,  every 
state  would  have  had  the  advantage  of  the  practical 
operation  of  the  efforts  of  every  other.  And  these 
several  efforts  of  necessity  would  have  been  in  the 
direction  of  devising  means  of  admitting  to  the  privi- 


The  Negro  in  Politics  381 

leges  of  the  body  politic  such  members  of  the  other 
race  as  might  be  qualified  by  education,  property  and 
character. 

Since  the  suffrage  would  not  have  been  possessed  by 
any  at  the  outset,  this  is  the  only  course  which  any  change 
at  all  could  have  taken.  On  the  other  hand,  all  were 
admitted  to  the  suffrage  at  once,  with  the  result  that 
the  ingenuity  of  each  state  has  been  taxed  in  the  op 
posite  direction  —  that  of  eliminating  the  incompetent 
mass.  Instead  of  each  state  having  the  benefit  of  the 
wisdom  and  experience  of  every  other  toward  reaching 
a  satisfactory  adjustment  of  their  common  difficulties, 
each  has  looked  to  the  other  for  suggestion  as  to  the 
mere  getting  rid  of  a  common  incubus.  And  a  dozen 
plans  might  have  been  evolved  for  guaranteeing  both 
supremacy  to  the  white  man  and  justice  and  fair  play 
to  the  Negro.  The  Jamaican  and  District  of  Columbia 
systems  do  not  exhaust  the  wisdom  of  the  world  in 
devising  schemes  for  the  equitable  government  of  mixed 
populations.  New  Zealand  has  a  better  system  than 
either  —  and  one  which  operates  without  friction  and 
without  complaint.  There  the  native  Maori  is  allowed 
a  fixed  number  of  representatives  in  Parliament.  There 
are  simply  two  constituencies,  a  white  and  a  native, 
neither  allowed  a  voice  in  selecting  the  representatives 
of  the  other.  White  control  is  guaranteed  by  making 
the  number  of  native  representatives  fixed  and  perma 
nent,  while  white  representation  is  based  on  population. 
At  the  same  time  the  Maori  is  guaranteed  a  permanent 
voice  in  Parliament,  with  always  an  opportunity  to 


382     The  American  Race  Problem 

make  known  his  grievances,  or  otherwise  make  himself 
heard.  In  some  instances  white  constituencies  have 
returned  Maori,  or  half  caste,  members.  Numberless 
modifications  of  the  scheme  are  possible. 

Of  course  it  will  at  once  be  answered  by  the  doctrin 
aire  that  this  would  not  be  in  accordance  with  the 
"genius  of  our  institutions,"  and  so  forth.  The  prac 
tical  man  might  ask  in  reply,  how  many  partly  Negro 
constituencies  North  or  South,  are  just  now  represented 
by  Negroes  in  Congress  or  state  legislatures?  And  the 
New  Zealand  solution,  engrafted  on  our  political  system, 
would  not  be  one  particle  more  hybrid  or  anomalous 
than  is  the  plan  of  government  which  we  have  evolved 
for  either  Porto  Rico,  the  District  of  Columbia  or  the 
Philippines.  While  we  are  wrestling  with  our  race 
troubles  in  this  country,  and  wondering  why  men  will 
stubbornly  refuse  to  be  guided  by  the  golden  rule  in 
everyday  affairs,  England  will  have  adopted  the  New 
Zealand  system  in  South  Africa  long  enough  to  have 
forgotten  that  there  ever  was  a  political  Negro  problem 
there.  But  let  us  return  to  the  matter  before  us. 

There  is  a  marvellous  degree  of  similarity  running 
through  the  history  of  Negro  suffrage  wherever  it  has 
been  tried  in  connection  with  a  joint  self-governing 
system.  The  attitude  of  the  white  party  to  the  system 
has  been  the  same  the  world  over.  The  only  exceptions 
are  those  communities  in  which  the  Negro  has  been  so 
hopelessly  outnumbered  as  to  be  politically  a  negligible 
quantity.  Elsewhere  the  white  man  either  regards 
the  Negro  as  a  political  commodity  too  valuable  to  be 


The  Negro  in  Politics  383 

dispensed  with,  or  considers  him  an  element  of  evil 
too  dangerous  to  be  tolerated.  Everywhere  there  are 
men  who  hold  the  former  attitude.  The  South  was 
cursed  with  their  nefarious  activity  during  its  Recon 
struction  period.  Only  because  it  is  no  longer  possible 
to  keep  the  Negro  masses  in  politics  have  these  men 
ceased  to  use  them.  Party  lines  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  The  Negro  vote  is  bought  and  sold  in  the 
open  markets  of  Delaware,  Chicago,  Indianapolis, 
New  York,  Louisville,  and  St.  Louis,  by  both  political 
parties.  Even  men  who  honestly  deplore  such  condi 
tions,  and  who  on  account  of  them  would  gladly  elimi 
nate  the  Negro  from  politics,  justify  themselves  for 
''fighting  the  devil  with  fire."  They  say  that  as  long 
as  the  Negro  vote  is  for  sale  they  are  compelled  in  self- 
defense  to  purchase  their  share  in  its  control.  It  is 
easy  to  say  that  the  fault  lies  more  with  the  white  man 
who  purchases  than  with  the  Negro  who  sells.  This 
does  not  touch  the  root  of  the  evil.  In  the  game  of 
party  politics  each  side  uses  whatever  advantage  it 
can  command.  The  highest  hope  of  a  self-governing 
state  is  in  admitting  to  a  share  in  its  control  only 
those  who  individually  hold  their  privilege  as  some 
thing  too  high  to  be  trafficked  in.  The  individual 
who  is  for  sale  is  not  a  fit  or  safe  depositary  of 
political  power.  At  best  we  must  always  reckon  on 
a  number  of  these  in  the  white  body  politic  —  but 
when  we  have  a  racial  mass  of  such  individuals  we 
are  afflicted  with  at  least  the  germ  of  a  potentially 
dangerous  disease. 


384     The  American  Race  Problem 

It  is  probably  natural  that  the  course  and  motives 
of  the  Southern  men  who  initiated  the  movement  for 
the  destruction  of  this  germ  in  the  political  life  of  the 
South,  through  the  legal  disfranchisement  of  the  Negro 
masses,  should  have  been  misunderstood.  Misunder 
standings  were  for  many  years  the  normal  relation 
between  the  Northern  and  Southern  states.  It  is 
unfortunate,  however,  that  the  fiction  should  have 
been  perpetuated.  The  South  did  not  disfranchise 
this  ignorant  and  helpless  horde  in  order  to  get  control 
of  political  affairs.  There  was  not  a  state  in  the  South 
which  was  not  as  absolutely  and  unconditionally  in 
the  power  of  its  white  people  in  1880  as  it  has  been 
since  1890.  The  states  of  Georgia,  Arkansas,  Florida, 
Tennessee,  and  Texas  have  no  such  constitutions  as 
are  foolishly  and  ignorantly  denounced  in  Mississippi, 
Louisiana,  and  South  Carolina.  Yet  they  are  no  less 
firmly  within  white  control.  The  repeal  of  every 
amended  constitution  in  the  South  would  not  change 
the  complexion  of  a  single  Southern  delegation  in 
Congress,  just  as  their  adoption  did  not  shift  political 
control  in  a  single  state. 

The  motives  which  actuated  those  who  inaugurated 
and  executed  the  movement  for  an  amended  constitu 
tion  in  Mississippi,  which  took  the  first  step  in  1890, 
were  higher  than  any  mere  question  of  party  gain. 
They  were  men  who  realised  from  bitter  experience 
the  vital  necessity  for  white  control,  but  who  deplored 
with  equal  intensity  the  methods  necessary  to  secure 
and  perpetuate  it.  Not  since  the  foundation  of  this 


The  Negro  in  Politics  385 

Government  was  laid  has  there  been  any  movement 
in  America  which  had  its  roots  more  deeply  planted 
in  the  highest  conceptions  of  political  morality.  They 
were  sick  at  heart  over  the  course  of  events  which  had 
followed  as  the  inevitable  sequence  of  as  cruel  a  situa 
tion  as  ever  confronted  men  with  whom  a  high  sense 
of  political  honesty  was  a  traditional  habit  of  life  and 
a  controlling  principle  of  conduct. 

When  a  Northern  reporter  went  down  to  study  the 
conditions  out  of  which  grew  the  upheaval  in  North 
Carolina  in  1898,  here  is  what  he  found  at  a  political 
meeting  in  Wilmington:  "I  had  an  opportunity  to 
observe  that  they  were  earnest,  dignified,  sober  men, 
heads  of  families,  and  owners  of  property,  engaged 
in  the  best  mercantile  and  professional  pursuits.  All 
shades  of  political  belief  were  represented.  Some  of 
the  citizens  had  voted  for  Mr.  McKinley,  and  others 
for  Mr.  Bryan;  some  were  Gold  and  some  Silver 
Democrats;  some  favoured  protection,  and  others 
advocated  free  trade ;  but  in  the  presence  of  what  they 
believed  to  be  an  overwhelming  crisis,  they  brushed 
aside  the  great  principles  that  divide  parties  and 
individuals,  and  stood  together  as  one  man.  Their 
language  indicated  the  intensity  of  the  situation,  as  they 
viewed  it."* 

He  again  observes:  "Ordinarily,  social  revolutions 
in  the  United  States  are  accomplished  through  a  medium 
of  a  change  in  political  parties.  In  Wilmington  pol- 


*  "The  Race  War  in  North  Carolina,"  Henry  Litchfield  West,  Forum,   Jan. 
1899,  p.  579. 


386     The  American  Race  Problem 

itics  played  a  most  subordinate  part.  The  first  definite 
movement  toward  the  overthrow  of  Negro  rule  was 
taken  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  a  non-partisan  or 
ganisation,  which  adopted  resolutions  declaring  that  the 
situation  was  a  menace  to  peace  and  order,  and  calling 
upon  'every  good  citizen  to  exert  his  utmost  influence 
and  personal  effort  to  effect  results  which  will  restore 
order,  protect  property,  and  give  security  to  our  lives 
and  homes.'  The  President  of  the  Chamber  of  Com 
merce  —  a  New  Englander  and  a  Republican  — 
promptly  signed  this  declaration;  and  every  firm  con 
nected  with  the  organisation  attached  its  signature 
with  equal  alacrity.  With  this  substantial  inaugura 
tion  the  movement  for  white  supremacy  progressed 
rapidly.  Party  divisions  disappeared;  and  the  colour 
line  was  the  plain,  recognised,  and  openly  acknowledged 
issue.  Even  the  Republican  postmaster  of  Wilmington, 
a  Northern  man  who  had  never  voted  the  Democratic 
ticket  in  his  life,  recognised  this  fact.  'I  had  thought 
at  first,'  he  wrote  to  United  States  Senator  Pritchard, 
1  that  it  was  the  usual  political  cry  and  a  fight  for  office ; 
but  I  am  now  convinced  that  the  feeling  is  much  deeper 
than  this,  as  it  pervades  the  whole  community,  and 
there  seems  to  be  a  settled  determination  on  the  part 
of  the  property  owners,  business  men,  and  taxpayers 
to  administer  the  city  and  county  government.'  .  .  . 
There  was  still,  however,  no  disguising  of  the  white 
men's  intentions.  They  believed  that  if  they  paid, 
as  they  did,  97  per  cent,  of  the  taxes,  and  if  they  alone 
had  demonstrated  their  capacity  for  developing  and 


The  Negro  in  Politics  387 

governing  the  city,  they  alone  should  rule;  and  this 
point  they  were  prepared  to  establish  at  any  cost."* 

If  one  will  read  Mr.  West's  account  of  this  "Race 
War  in  North  Carolina"  he  will  understand,  perhaps, 
why  the  respectable  white  people  of  the  state  deter 
mined  to  remove  by  constitutional  means,  as  far  as 
was  in  their  power,  the  possibility  of  its  recurrence. 
He  should  also  be  able  to  grasp  the  more  elementary 
facts  and  impulses  which  underlie  the  actions  of  Southern 
white  men  who  have  been  confronted  by  the  Negro 
in  politics.  He  might  even  realise  how  childish  to 
thoughtful  Southern  people  seem  the  charges  which 
would  indict  them  for  having  been  actuated  by  base 
and  selfish  political  motives  in  seeking  to  eradicate 
the  disease  which  was  eating  at  the  very  vitals  of  their 
domestic  life. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  Southern  states  to  the  South 
of  Africa  and  the  Englishman  is  not  an  American, 
nor  the  Kaffir  the  son  of  a  Congo  slave.  But  the  white 
man  remains  a  white  man,  and  the  Negro  is  a  Negro 
still,  and  politics  is  politics.  A  well-known  English 
observer  thus  discusses  the  situation  in  Cape  Colony: 
"Already  the  coloured  man  is  a  formidable  force  in 
the  game  of  party  politics  in  one,  and  the  oldest,  South 
African  colony.  The  most  deplorable  feature  of  the 
Cape  elections  which  have  just  ended  was  the  power 
exercised  by  the  native  vote.  .  .  .  The  gravity 
of  the  situation  is  unfortunately  not  appreciated  in 


*  "The  Race  War  in  North  Carolina,"  Henry  Litchfield  West,  Forum,  Jan. 
J.8Q9,  PP-  582,  583, 


388     The  American  Race  Problem 

England,  or,  at  all  events,  appreciated  by  only  a  very 
few.  Perhaps  this  is  not  surprising  when  one  remem 
bers  that  many  South  Africans,  blinded  by  the  political 
expediency  of  the  moment,  fail  completely  to  discern 
the  peril  which  is  close  upon  them.  Future  calamity, 
however  stupendous,  is  to  them  as  nothing  compared 
with  present  political  gain,  however  mean.  .  .  . 
What  if  the  native  does  form  an  extravagant  estimate 
of  his  own  importance,  and  cultivate  an  unbounded 
contempt  for  the  white  man?  A  seat  has  been  won  for 
the  party."* 

There,  just  as  here,  we  have  the  spectacle  of  the 
political  manipulation  of  the  Negro  voter,  followed 
by  his  casting  off  till  another  election  comes  round. 
And  anyone  who  has  seen  the  Negro  take  part  in  a 
close  local  contest  between  white  candidates  can 
appreciate  the  force  of  the  above  suggestion  of  effect 
upon  the  South  African  native  mind.  And  in  Cape 
Colony  the  "Ethiopian  Church"  is  as  deep  in  politics 
as  the  Negro  churches  were  when  the  Negro  was  a  factor 
in  Southern  affairs.  And  also  at  the  Cape  there  are 
Negro  political  associations  and  newspapers,  supported 
by,  and,  as  Mr.  Jones  remarks,  "the  henchmen  of  one 
or  other  white  political  party."  The  parallel  is  almost 
complete. 

The  report  of  the  non-partisan  Inter-Colonial  Com 
mission,  made  in  1905,  while  permeated  with  a  spirit 
of  liberal  justice  to  the  natives,  recognises  the  gravity 


*  "The  Black  Peril  in  South  Africa,"  Roderick    Jones,  Nineteenth  Century 
and  After,  May,  1904.  P«  7*3- 


The  Negro  in  Politics  389 

of  the  situation  created  by  their  growing  political 
importance.  To  quote  Mr.  Jones's  comment  on  the 
report,  a  year  after  his  former  discussion:  "They 
dismiss  the  proposition  that  'full  and  equal  political 
rights  should  be  granted  to  all  classes  of  men  fulfilling 
the  necessary  franchise  qualifications,'  and  observe 
that  'in  the  present  state  of  parties  the  native  vote 
has  acquired  an  excessive  importance/  The  commis 
sion  also  says  "that  in  the  near  future  native  voters 
in  at  least  some  of  the  constituencies  will  outnumber 
the  Europeans.  Under  such  circumstances  the  voting 
of  the  future  may  proceed  upon  race  lines,  and  no  one 
acquainted  with  the  conditions  of  life  in  South  Africa 
will  hesitate  to  say  that  a  conflict  would  then  arise 
fatal  to  the  good  relations  which  have  upon  the  whole 
hitherto  existed  between  white  and  black  in  this 
country."* 

Here  is  a  frank  suggestion  of  the  effect  of  a  political 
conflict  upon  race  relations  which  American  history 
confirms  in  all  its  possibilities.  There  is  also  a  bare 
hint  at  a  recognition  of  an  almost  inviolable  law  which 
governs  the  white  attitude  toward  the  Negro  in  pol 
itics.  Where  the  Negro  is  in  a  hopeless  minority  his 
vote  is  sought  by  white  factions  —  and  is  either  pur 
chased  or  secured  by  petty  places,  such,  as  Mr.  Fortune 
suggests,  as  the  white  politician  does  not  want.  As 
long  as  he  is  numerically  too  weak,  or  the  white  vote 
is  not  equally  enough  divided,  to  enable  him  to  con- 


*  Quoted  in  "The  Black  Problem  in  South  Africa,"  Roderick  Jones,  Nine 
teenth  Century  and  After,  May,  1905,  pp.  762,  763. 


390      The  American  Race  Problem 

stitute  a  real  balance  of  power,  he  is  tolerated  or  en 
couraged,  or  both,  by  white  politicians.  As  such  play 
thing  of  the  white  partisan  he  is  almost  as  dangerous 
an  element,  certainly  as  vicious  and  demoralising  an 
influence,  as  when  he  possesses  greater  numerical 
strength.  But  your  white  politician  of  the  average 
type  cares  nothing  for  this.  He  is  blind  to  everything 
save  personal  advantage  in  America  as  in  South  Africa. 
When,  however,  the  Negro's  numerical  increase  is 
sufficient  to  create  a  direct  or  indirect  menace  to  the 
unquestioned  political  supremacy  of  the  white  man, 
party  lines  disappear,  and  the  colour  line  becomes  the 
controlling  consideration  with  the  rank  and  file. 

The  difference  between  the  two  situations  suggested 
here  is  illustrated  by  the  difference  between  present 
conditions  in  Cape  Colony,  with  a  limited  number  of 
Negro  voters,  and  the  conditions  which  the  commission 
foresees  when  the  native  vote  shall  be  sufficiently 
strong  to  create  a  political  colour  line.  It  is  likewise 
illustrated  in  the  difference  between  conditions  in 
Ohio,  New  York,  Indiana,  Illinois,  or  Pennsylvania, 
and  conditions  in  any  one  of  the  Southern  states.  If 
the  movement  of  Negroes  toward  the  North  assumes 
sufficiently  large  proportions,  the  next  two  or  three 
decades  or  so  will  likely  create  some  interesting  political 
history  in  this  country,  with  the  Negro  a  central  figure. 
Meanwhile  we  may  look  toward  Africa.  The  Boer 
leaders  may  have  known  nothing  about  the  Negro  in 
American  politics,  but  conditions  nearer  home  were 
sufficient  to  make  them  hold  out  for  a  stipulation  in 


The  Negro  in  Politics  391 

the  Vereeniging  Peace  Covenant  which  bound  England 
to  refrain  from  broaching  the  question  of  native  suffrage 
until  full  autonomy  should  have  been  granted  their 
colonies.  The  dream  of  more  than  one  South  African 
statesman  has  been  and  is  of  a  confederacy  somewhat 
after  the  Australasian  type.  But  Natal  thus  far  stands 
as  immovable  as  the  Mediterranean  rock,  in  opposition 
to  a  union  which  would  be  born  with  the  insidious 
affliction  of  Negro  suffrage  —  the  heart-disease  of  self- 
governing  colonies  and  states. 

The  difference  between  the  shadow  and  the  sub 
stance  of  self-governing  capacity  and  right  have  not 
anywhere  been  more  clearly  pointed  out  than  in  this 
passage  from  the  pen  of  an  eminent  New  England 
Senator,  the  late  Orville  H.  Platt,  of  Connecticut: 
' '  To  insure  the  success  of  free  government  certain 
conditions  seem  indispensable.  There  must  be  a  homo 
geneous  people  possessed  of  a  high  degree  of  virtue 
and  intelligence.  A  sentimental  longing  for  liberty 
will  not  itself  insure  the  maintenance  of  a  republic. 
Liberty  is  a  word  of  quite  elastic  meaning.  Licence 
is  not  true  liberty.  It  is  orderly  liberty  only  which 
constitutes  the  sure  basis  of  free  government.  That 
government  only  is  really  free  and  independent  where 
liberty  is  restrained  and  buttressed  by  law,  and  where 
the  supposed  rights  of  the  individual  are  limited  by 
the  rights  of  all.  To  establish  such  liberty  there  must 
be  an  intelligent  understanding  of  the  social  system 
and  a  comprehension  of  the  just  principles  upon  which 
true  government  must  always  rest.  The  consent  of 


392     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  governed  must  be  an  intelligent  consent.  Where 
the  capacity  to  consent  does  not  exist,  no  government 
can  be  permanently  maintained  upon  such  consent. 
Where  a  majority  of  voters  neither  understand  nor 
respect  the  true  principles  of  government,  there  may 
be  a  republic  in  name,  but  in  fact  it  will  only  be  a  dic 
tatorship,  in  which  the  purpose  and  power  of  its 
president  control,  rather  than  the  consent  of  the 
governed."* 

We  may  set  over  against  this  utterance  that  of  another 
eminent  American.  At  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
celebration  at  Tuskegee  in  1906,  Booker  T.  Washington 
expressed  himself  on  an  aspect  of  the  problem  of  his 
people  of  which  he  seldom  speaks.  A  few  months 
later  he  repeated  his  remarks  at  the  celebration  of  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  Wilberforce  University.  He 
said  on  the  latter  occasion:  "Let  me  repeat  in  sub 
stance  what  I  recently  said  in  the  heart  of  the  South, 
that  in  connection  with  our  religious,  educational, 
and  material  growth  we  should  not  loose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  if  this  country  is  to  continue  to  be  a  republic 
its  task  will  never  be  completed  as  long  as  seven  or 
eight  millions  of  its  people  are  in  a  large  degree  regarded 
as  aliens,  and  are  without  voice  or  interest  in  the  wel 
fare  of  the  Government.  Such  a  course  will  not  merely 
inflict  great  injustice  upon  these  millions  of  people, 
but  the  nation  will  pay  the  price  of  finding  the  genius 
and  form  of  its  government  changed,  not  perhaps  in 


*  "  America's  Race  Problems,"  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political 
and  Social  Science,  Vol.  18,  No.  i,  July.  .901,  p.  148. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  393 

name,  but  certainly  in  reality,  and  because  of  this  the 
world  will  say  that  free  government  is  a  failure."* 

Below  the  surface  of  the  words  of  these  two  men  there 
lies  the  fundamental  difference  of  the  point  of  view 
of  respective  racial  self-interest.  To  the  mind  of  Dr. 
Washington  this  government  will  be  "a  republic  only  in 
name"  if  a  certain  large  mass  of  its  population  does 
not  share  equally  in  its  control.  To  the  mind  of  Senator 
Platt  successful  free  government  must  be  based  upon 
a  homogeneous  population,  possessed  of  a  "high  degree 
of  virtue  and  intelligence,"  while  without  an  under 
standing  of  "the  true  principles  of  government"  we 
have  "a  republic  only  in  name."  Mr.  Washington 
sees  some  millions  of  Negro  citizens  "governed  without 
their  consent,"  if  we  may  so  interpret  his  words.  Mr. 
Platt  is  looking  only  at  those  qualities  the  possession 
of  which  must  be  a  condition  precedent  to  even  "the 
capacity  to  consent,"  if  the  government  is  to  endure. 
And  to  Senator  Platt 's  utterances  is  added  an  additional 
significance.  He  was  addressing  himself  immediately 
to  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  maintaining  a 
self-governing  republic,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  form,  in  a 
country  wherein  about  one-third  of  the  people  were 
of  the  race  for  which  Mr.  Washington  is  the  usually 
accredited  American  spokesman.  The  author  of  the 
"Platt  Amendment"  was  discussing  the  future  of  Cuba. 

We  have  been  taught  in  this  republic,  taught  from 
national  infancy,  to  encougage  similar  forms  of  govern 
ment  always  and  everywhere.  And  it  is  apparently 

*  Coloured  American  Magazine,  Aug.  1906,  pp.  76,  77. 


394     The  American  Race  Problem 

hard  for  us  to  accept  the  seemingly  bitter  truth  that 
for  some  people  other  systems  are  better,  and  that 
some  people  are  not  adapted  to  ours.  Forty  years 
ago  we  began  the  experiment  of  forcing  another  race 
into  our  political  mould,  apparently  confident  that  a 
constitutional  straight-jacket  could  create  a  self- 
governing  man.  We  have  been  loath  to  admit  our 
failure,  and  we  are  reluctant  to  recognise  the  results 
of  even  practical  experience  which  elsewhere  adds 
weight  to  the  evidence  which  we  are  so  unwilling  to 
believe.  Cuba  is  but  another  addition  to  the  list  of 
failures  recorded  against  the  self-governing  efforts  of 
the  Negro  —  in  the  United  States,  in  Haiti,  in  Jamaica, 
in  Liberia,  in  South  Africa.  Yet,  as  long  as  there  is 
any  possible  or  impossible  alternative  hypothesis  upon 
which  to  account  for  the  poor  fiasco  which  has  so  recently 
made  necessary  our  second  occupation  of  the  island,  we 
accept  it  and  nurse  it  and  in  it  try  to  find  a  prop  to  our 
failing  faith. 

In  1898,  and  in  the  city  of  Boston,  while  the  country 
was  ready  to  go  into  hysteria  over  "Cuba  Libre,"  the 
latest  born  of  American  republics,  a  cold-blooded,  non- 
sentimental  student  ventured  a  forecast  which  is  worth 
recalling.  After  a  severe  characterisation  of  the  Negroes 
of  the  island  he  said:  "  Such  are  the  liberators  of  Cuba. 
The  Cuba  Libre  of  the  blacks  would  be  a  veritable  hell 
upon  earth,  a  blot  upon  Christian  civilisation.  .  .  . 
Knowing  the  island  as  I  do,  I  fear  that  an  independent 
Cuba  will  be  an  impossibility.  As  an  American  colony 
she  will  blossom  and  bring  forth  her  increase.  Then, 


The  Negro  in  Politics  395 

and  then  only,  will  the  black  plague  of  central  and 
eastern  Cuba  cease  to  be  a  nightmare.  It  is  a  question 
of  time.  Cuba  will  be  the  brightest  spot  in  the  colonial 
possessions  of  the  United  States."* 

"We  are  in  danger  of  becoming  another  Haiti  if 
left  to  ourselves,"  said  a  prominent  Cuban  tobacco 
grower  to  William  Inglis,  after  the  recent  revolution. 
He  added:  "You  have  noticed  among  the  soldiers 
in  the  rebel  army  many  Negroes  with  their  front  teeth 
filed  down  to  sharp  points  like  saw  teeth.  This  is  a 
form  of  personal  decoration  in  vogue  among  the  black 
dandies  of  the  Congo.  There  are  in  this  island  many 
thousands  of  Negroes  not  one  step  higher  in  civilisation 
than  those  you  find  in  the  African  jungles.  These 
fellows  take  the  field  with  any  leader  to  whom  they 
are  attached.  They  do  not  ask  why  they  are  taking 
up  arms,  so  long  as  they  are  following  their  chiefs, 
living  on  the  fat  of  the  land  and  hoping  for  a  life  of  ease 
in  office  when  the  so-called  'war'  is  ended. "f  And 
upon  his  own  observation  Mr.  Inglis  concurred. 

The  man  most  familiar  with  the  West  Indies  and 
the  West  Indian  Negro,  himself  a  native  of  Massa 
chusetts,  records  this  conviction:  "There  are  those 
who  declare  that  English  rule  in  the  West  Indies  is 
retardative,  even  retrogressive,  as  exemplified  in  the 
Bahamas ;  but  when  we  reflect  what  a  bulwark  England 
has  provided  against  the  ever-threatening  flood  of 

*"Cuba:  Past,  Present  and  Future,"  Dr.  Wolfred  Nelson,  F.  R.  G.  S. 
"Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science," 
Boston,  1898,  pp.  552,  553. 

t  "The  Future  of  Cuba,"  North  American  Review,  Nov.  16,  1906,  p.  1039. 


396     The  American  Race  Problem 

black  barbarians,  we  cannot  but  admit  that  she  is 
entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  civilised  humanity  in  general. 
But  for  British  officialism  in  the  West  Indies,  with 
its  prestige  of  might  behind  it  and  visible  cordons  of 
soldiers  around  it,  there  are  many  islands  which  would 
soon  resemble  Haiti  in  other  and  blacker  features  than 
complexion  merely."* 

And  what  of  Haiti,  as  we  pass  along?  The  same 
authority  says:  "What  an  outspoken  editor  of  a  local 
paper,  the  Gazette  du  Peuple,  wrote  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  applies  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Haiti 
to-day:  'For  sixty-eight  years,  or  from  the  date  of 
our  national  existence,  what  have  we  done?  Nothing, 
or  almost  nothing.  All  our  constitutions  are  defective, 
all  our  laws  are  incomplete,  our  customs  badly  adminis 
tered,  our  navy  is  detestable,  our  police  ill-organised, 
our  army  in  a  pitiable  state,  our  finances  rotten  to  the 
base,  the  legislative  power  is  not  understood  and  never 
will  be,  the  primary  elections  are  neglected,  and  our 
people  do  not  feel  their  importance.  Nearly  all  our 
public  edifices  are  in  ruins;  the  public  instruction  is 
almost  entirely  abandoned. '"f 

Recalling  Mr.  Roosevelt's  appeal  for  a  ratification 
of  the  treaty  with  Santo  Domingo,  in  order  to  "save" 
that  country  from  anarchy,  we  may  ask  ourselves, 
what  is  to  be  our  future  part  in  the  affairs  of  these 
Dominican,  Cuban,  and  Haitian  cousins  of  our  own 
"brothers  in  black"?  Will  we  recognise  the  truth,  as 


*  "Our  West  Indian  Neighbours,"  Frederick  A.  Ober.  1904,  p.  7. 
t  "Idem  "  p.  163. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  397 

England  long  since  recognised  it?  Or  will  we  sacrifice 
good  government,  good  order,  and  good  sense  to  the 
fetich  of  racial  equality?  But  that  is  another  story. 

A  few  years  ago  this  writer  suggested  that  it  would 
be  wise  for  us  frankly  to  take  account  of  the  ignored 
mulatto  factor  in  the  American  race  problem.  The 
conviction  has  deepened  that  unless  we  do,  there  is 
no  shore  to  the  sea  upon  which  we  shall  drift  in  our 
aimless  and  fruitless  discussion  of  a  .question  as  broad 
as  the  English-speaking  world.  If  we  have  reached 
the  conviction  that  there  are  in  fact  no  fundamental 
differences  of  race ;  if  we  believe  that  there  are  no  differ 
entiating  racial  traits  and  tendencies  in  the  life  history 
and  heritage  of  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian,  and  the 
Negro  —  then  of  course  we  need  not  concern  ourselves 
about  the  byproducts  resulting  from  a  blending  of 
either  of  these  with  another.  But  if  we  believe  that 
each  of  these  races,  no  matter  how  much  like  the  others 
along  certain  broad  lines,  possesses  its  own  distinguishing 
characteristics,  then  in  any  consideration  of  the  problems 
which  arise  from  the  contact  of  race  with  race  we  are 
unwise  to  ignore  the  connecting  link  between  the  two. 

It  is  very  convenient  for  the  Southern  white  man  to 
include  everybody  with  a  trace  of  Negro  blood  under 
the  general  race  designation.  Nothing  is  more  human 
than  that  the  Northern  white  man  who  happens  to  be 
interested  in  the  Negro  should  insist  upon  the  privilege 
of  claiming  for  his  protege*  credit  for  any  and  everything 
accomplished  in  the  work  of  the  world  by  men  whom 


398     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  South  calls  Negroes,  no  matter  how  straight  the 
hair  or  how  fair  the  skin.  Possibly  it  is  natural  that 
the  man  of  mixed  blood  who  finds  himself  identified 
with  the  Negro  by  the  dominant  element  of  both  sections 
of  the  country,  should  accept  the  classification  — 
bitterly,  sullenly  or  cheerfully,  according  to  tempera 
ment  —  should  accept  it  and  make  the  best  of  it,  for 
either  himself  or  the  race  to  which  he  is  assigned. 
Certainly  it  is  natural  that  the  Negro  masses,  ever 
ready  to  identify  themselves,  or  be  identified,  with 
people  mentally  or  physically  of  a  higher  type,  should 
with  few  exceptions  welcome  the  mulatto  as  an  equal, 
follow  his  leadership,  and  even  resent  the  drawing  of  a 
line  between  themselves  and  him.  All  this  may  be 
natural,  but  the  combined  influence  of  Northern  and 
Southern  white  men,  and  of  Negro  and  mulatto,  can 
no  more  perpetuate  it  than  they  could  make  perpetual 
any  other  absurd  and  unscientific  fiction. 

The  mulatto  is  not  a  Negro,  and  neither  written 
nor  social  law  can  make  him  one.  By  consent  of  all 
parties,  including  himself,  he  may  be  called  a  Negro. 
But  we  can  no  more  make  a  Negro  by  such  a  process 
than  we  can  alter  the  life  traits  and  nationality  of  a 
Russian  peasant  by  bestowing  upon  him  an  English 
name.  The  essential  fallacy  which  underlies  this 
classification  will  sooner  or  later  make  the  latter  im 
possible  to  maintain.  The  South  has  certain  more  or 
less  definite  convictions  on  the  question  of  Negro 
inferiority.  If  all  mulattoes  are  Negroes  there  is 
scarcely  one  such  conviction  which  may  not  be  rendered 


The  Negro  in  Politics  399 

wholly  absurd  by  the  achievements  in  science  and  art 
and  letters  of  persons  of  mixed  blood.  The  North  has 
idealised  the  gentleness,  docility,  good  nature,  non- 
resentment,  affection,  amiability,  and  so  forth,  of  the 
Negro  character.  The  danger  to  this  theory  which 
lies  in  the  failure  to  differentiate  the  two  types  may  be 
read  in  the  words  of  the  best  student  we  have  of  the 
Jamaica  "black,"  Mr.  William  Pringle  Livingstone. 
Strongly  sympathising  with  the  subject  of  his  study, 
he  says:  "The  loose  nomenclature  which  prevails 
has  frequently  injured  the  reputation  of  the  Negro; 
he  has  been  made  responsible  for  faults  of  which  he  is 
not  guilty,  and  for  movements  and  deeds  in  which  he 
has  taken  no  part."*  He  deprecates  this  "habit  of 
the  outside  world,"  and  approves  the  "right  distinction, 
made  and  adhered  to  by  all  concerned"  in  Jamaica. 
There  is  no  purpose  here  to  do  more  than  suggest  a 
line  of  thought  on  a  subject  which  demands,  and  some 
time  must  receive,  the  attention  of  students  of  the 
race  problem.  Mr.  Livingstone's  observation  brings 
us  to  the  point  we  had  in  view  in  touching  the  subject 
at  all  in  this  connection.  We  have  been  discussing 
the  Negro  as  a  political  factor  in  self-governing  com 
munities.  This  writer  frankly  admits  his  conclusion 
to  be  that  without  regard  to  the  question  of  potential 
self-governing  capacity,  the  Negro  as  the  world  knows 
him  to-day,  is  politically  a  failure.  If  we  wish  to  couch 
it  in  other  terms,  we  might  say  that  as  a  race,  excluding 

*" Black  Jamaica,  A  Study  in  Evolution,"  London,  1899,  pp.  6,  7.  The 
allusion  is  evidently  to  the  so-called  "Gordon  riots"  of  1865,  led  by  a  mulatto 
of  that  name. 


400     The  American  Race  Problem 

individual  exceptions,  he  has  not  yet  developed,  in 
his  process  of  evolution,  the  instinct,  or  idea,  or  capacity 
necessary  to  successful  participation  on  equal  terms 
with  the  higher  branches  of  the  white  race  in  a  self- 
governing  system.  It  is  idle  to  deal  in  superlatives, 
and  characterise  racial  traits  and  limitations  as  "per 
petual,"  "unchangeable,"  and  so  forth.  "Perpetual" 
means  a  longer  stretch  of  time  than  this  writer  cares 
to  deal  with.  I  do  not  even  pretend  to  say  what  the 
Negro  may  or  may  not  finally  develop  in  the  field  of 
self-governing  capacity.  I  am  concerned  here  only 
with  the  practical  facts  of  the  immediate  past  and 
present.  This  much,  however,  I  am  willing  to  venture: 
If  ever  the  Negro  masses  shall  develop  the  necessary 
ability,  the  capacity  of  intelligent  consent,  they  will 
enjoy  their  share  in  the  government  of  the  country  of 
which  they  may  form  a  part;  but  as  long  as  they  are 
content  to  remain,  or  do  remain,  "the  driven  cattle 
of  the  political  arena,"  to  borrow  a  phrase  from  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  Harvard  address,  they  will  not  be  permitted 
to  share  "equally"  in  the  government  of  English- 
speaking  white  men  —  where  their  numbers  are  suffi 
cient  to  menace  white  control.  And  I  am  not  con 
cerned  to  limit  the  proposition  to  any  section  or  any 
country.* 

This  view  of  Negro  political  capacity  seems  to  be 
shared  by  the   pronounced  "pro-Negro"  English   pub- 


*  It  must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  this  entire  discussion  deals  with 
the  Negro  masses,  the  childish  millions  of  the  race.  There  are  many  indi 
viduals,  of  apparently  unmixed  blood,  who  constitute  a  safe,  intelligent, 
honest,  respectable  property-holding  minority. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  401 

licist  and  administrator,  Mr.  Sydney  Olivier.  The 
article  from  which  we  quote  was  commended  in  the 
highest  terms  by  various  "race  papers"  in  this  country, 
but  no  mention  was  made  of  the  real  heart  of  his  dis 
cussion.  Mr.  Olivier  says,  frankly  enough:  "The 
recently  emancipated  slave  is  not  qualified  for  political 
self-government  under  electoral  institutions.  I  go 
further  and  say  that  the  Jamaican  Negro  of  to-day, 
after  two  generations  of  emancipation,  is  not  qualified 
for  self-government."  To  this  he  adds:  "It  is  quite 
possible  to  justify  a  political  generalisation  —  not  as  a 
truth,  but  as  a  working  formula  —  that  it  is  advisable 
to  restrict  the  franchise  where  the  majority  of  the 
population  are  Negro  peasants.  But  it  is  not  possible, 
either  as  a  working  political  formula,  or  as  an  anthropo 
logical  theorem,  to  justify  a  generalisation  that  there 
is  any  political  or  human  function  for  which  coloured 
persons  are  disqualified  because  of  their  African  blood."* 

Here  we  have  a  recognition  of  another  political  factor, 
one  neither  white  nor  black.  It  comes  to  view  in 
drawing  the  line  between  "black"  and  "coloured," 
as  known  to  Jamaica  —  between  "Negro"  and 
"mulatto"  as  known  to  the  United  States. 

There  can  no  longer  be  a  question  as  to  the  superior 
intelligence  of  the  mulatto  over  the  Negro  —  of  his 
higher  average  potential  capacity.  It  is  not  clear, 
however,  that  if  clothed  with  authority,  without  the 
steadying  influence  of  general  white  control,  he  would 


*  "The  White  Man's  Burden  at  Home,"  International  Quarterly,  April, 
pp.  ai,  22. 


402     The  American  Race  Problem 

use  his  power  with  wisdom.  The  capacity  of  a  mulatto 
to  administer  an  executive  office,  in  a  department 
under  white  supervision  at  its  head,  is  one  thing.  The 
ability  of  any  group  of  mulattoes  to  govern  a  country 
with  a  mulatto  and  Negro  population  is  quite  another. 
The  mulatto  shares  the  inheritance  of  a  double  racial 
ancestry,  and  just  as  he  derives  his  superior  mental 
endowment  from  his  white  forebears,  so  does  he  in 
herit  their  traits  with  their  blood.  The  American 
or  Jamaican  mulatto  is  not  the  mulatto  of  the  Spanish 
or  French  West  Indies,  or  of  Central  America  or  Brazil. 
Nor  should  the  "coloured"  type  in  British  South  Africa, 
the  descendants  of  English,  Dutch,  and  Scotch  paren 
tage,  be  confused  with  the  Portuguese  half-caste  of 
Angola. 

The  infusion  of  Negro  blood  has  played  its  part  in 
Central  American  "revolutions,"  and  Spanish  mulattoes 
have  furnished  their  share  of  the  political  and  military 
"leaders"  of  these  affairs.  The  general  condition  of 
Haiti  may  truthfully  be  described  as  more  brutishly 
degraded  than  that  of  Santo  Domingo,  but  the  political 
stability  of  the  yellow  "republic"  is  no  greater  than 
that  of  the  black.  Liberia  is  practically  under  the 
absolute  political  control  of  its  mulatto  element,  with 
"Anglo  Saxon"  rather  than  Latin  blood.  It  is  a  de 
cadent  state,  it  is  true,  but  it  has  never  been  cursed 
with  the  revolutionary  turmoil  which  has  characterised 
Latin  American  peoples  with  an  infusion  of  Negro 
blood,  or  Dominican  mulattoes  with  their  infusion  of 
French  and  Spanish, 


The  Negro  in  Politics  403 

It  would  be  merely  speculative  to  say  that  the  higher 
types  of  American  mulattoes  would  have  developed 
into  a  safe  and  conservative  political  element  had 
they  not  been  so  violently  thrust  into  the  position  of 
joint  leaders  with  unscrupulous  white  men  of  an 
ignorant,  half -barbarian  horde  of  superstitious  and 
emotional  Negro  children.  This,  however,  was  their 
fate.  They  went  up  like  the  rocket,  and  came  down 
like  the  stick.  A  part,  and  an  unfortuately  prominent 
part,  of  the  saturnalia  which  has  passed  into  history 
as  "Reconstruction,"  they  have  shared  with  the  carpet 
bagger  and  scalawag  the  odium  which  always  attaches 
to  leadership  under  a  corrupt  and  vicious  regime.  The 
rehabilitation  of  their  political  reputation,  or  the 
building  of  a  new  one,  is  a  matter  which  rests  almost 
entirely  in  their  own  hands.  They  are  largely  the 
architects  of  their  own  political  fortunes.  If  they 
insist  upon  continued  political  identification  with 
the  Negro  masses,  merely  for  the  sake  of  retaining  a 
constituency  which  they  can  control,  that  is  their 
concern,  not  ours. 

To  return  to  Mr.  Olivier.  As  individuals  we  may 
or  may  not  fully  accept  either  branch  of  his  proposi 
tion.  But  we  would  be  wise  to  recognise  the  line  which 
he  draws.  He  says  that  Negroes  are  accorded  equal 
opportunities  and  privileges  with  the  coloured  man, 
but  adds:  "In  practice  it  is  the  rule  that  the  pure 
Negro  does  not  show  the  capacity  and  ambition  of  the 
man  of  mixed  race,  and  there  are  consequently  few 
persons  of  pure  African  extraction  in  positions  of  high 


404     The  American  Race  Problem 

consideration,  authority  or  responsibility."*  In  other 
words,  the  exceptional  Negro  is  recognised  as  such, 
while,  with  a  common  sense  which  we  would  do  well 
to  practise  ourselves,  the  rule  is  also  recognised  that 
it  is  the  man  of  colour,  the  mulatto,  who  really  shares 
in  the  administration  of  the  government  or  fills  private 
positions  demanding  ability  and  character.  We  appoint 
a  host  of  mulattoes  to  office,  with  here  and  there  a  Negro, 
and  with  a  solemnity  which  would  be  amusing  were  its 
results  less  serious,  proclaim  our  purpose  to  be  the 
"rewarding"  and  "stimulating"  of  "worthy  blacks." 
North  and  South  we  have  identified  the  mulatto  and 
the  black  man  politically.  We  have  forced  the  two 
into  political  life  on  equal  terms,  and  both  on  terms  of 
equality  with  the  white  man.  Then  when  the  com 
bined  forces  of  the  two,  the  Negro  masses  almost  in 
variably  led  by  the  mulatto,  have  threatened  the  white 
man's  political  supremacy,  we  have  had  riots  and  blood 
shed  and  anarchy.  And  who  has  been  the  chief  suf 
ferer?  The  Negro,  almost  without  exception,  just 
as  it  is  the  Negro  who  to-day  suffers  the  results  of 
strained  relations  and  racial  ill  feeling  when  a  mulatto 
is  appointed  to  office  over  local  protest. 

But  even  Mr.  Olivier  fails  to  recognise  the  most 
important  result  which  accrues  to  Jamaica  through 
this  drawing  of  an  inter- racial  colour  line,  with  the 
consequent  fuller  recognition  of  the  mulatto  by  the 
white  man.  Nor  does  any  American  writer  with  whom 


*  "The  White  Man's  Burden  at  Home,"  International  Quarterly,  April,   1905, 
p.  9- 


The  Negro  in  Politics  405 

I  am  familiar  manage  to  reach  the  reason  for  the  ab 
sence  of  friction  between  the  races  in  Jamaica,  and 
the  absence  of  agitation  by  "the  Negro."  For  one 
thing,  we  have  there  only  an  insignificant  handful 
of  white  people,  and  they  of  the  governing  class.  There 
is  practically  an  absence  of  a  white  proletariat.  And 
where  this  condition  obtains,  whether  here  and  there 
in  the  South,  or  in  Jamaica,  or  elsewhere,  there  is  almost 
entire  freedom  from  racial  friction,  save  along  the 
one  line  of  political  contact.  And  the  white  people  of 
Jamaica  and  the  authorities  in  England  combined  to 
remove  that  ground  of  friction  forty-two  years  ago. 
Jamaica  was  reduced  from  a  substantially  self-govern 
ing  to  a  Crown  Colony  by  the  process,  but  the  Negro 
was  eliminated  from  politics. 

In  the  second  place,  whether  we  want  to  or  not, 
we  are  forced  by  the  fact  to  recognise  that  the  racial 
agitation  for  "rights"  of  one  kind  or  another,  is  not 
the  work  of  the  Negro.  Save  in  rare  instances  it  is 
the  mulatto  who  is  the  heart  and  soul  of  these  com 
plaints.  And  in  the  Jamaican  system  the  mulatto 
is  given  no  cause  to  complain,  by  being  granted  privi 
leges  which  are  as  fully  accorded  in  no  place  where  he  is 
identified  with  the  Negro.  By  also  admitting  the 
few  Negroes  who  prove  their  capacity,  a  line  is  drawn 
between  these  two  groups  and  the  black  mass  —  while 
in  this  country  we  insist  upon  a  single  inclusive  classi 
fication. 

If  Mr.  Olivier  had  been  as  familiar  with  conditions 
in  Cape  Colony  as  one  should  be  who  claims  to  study 


4o6     The  American  Race  Problem 

the  question  broadly,  he  would  have  known  that  the 
situation  for  which  he  blames  the  Southern  people 
is  not  peculiar  to  the  South.  I  have  a  letter  before 
me  from  one  of  the  leaders  of  "coloured,"  not  "native," 
thought  in  South  Africa.  The  writer  was  educated 
in  England  and  has  travelled  in  the  Southern  and 
Northern  states  of  America.  He  declares  that  "there 
is  not  a  state  in  the  South  of  the  Union  in  which  condi 
tions  for  the  coloured  man  are  half  as  hard,  taken  on  a 
whole,  as  here  in  my  native  country."  Mr.  Colquhoun, 
out  of  his  abundant  experience,  writes:  "The  bitter 
note  in  the  South  African  native  press  comes,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  chiefly  from  a  special  class,  those  who 
are  neither  white  nor  black."*  Mr.  Colquhoun  thinks 
these  "half-castes"  have  no  real  grievance  at  the  Cape, 
as  they  are  under  no  restrictions  "save  those  imposed 
by  social  custom."  Apparently  we  cannot  escape  the 
"social  aspect"  of  the  problem,  either  in  America  or 
Africa.  He  tells  the  South  African  "coloured"  man 
that  "if  he  wants  to  see  a  country  where  he  may  ride 
in  any  part  of  the  train  or  tram,  provided  he  is  well 
conducted,  walk  where  he  pleases,  fill  any  post  save 
the  highest  administrative  ones,  follow  any  trade  or 
profession  and  be  treated  with  respect  if  he  deserves 
it,  he  must  go,  not  to  the  Southern  states  where  he  has 
the  franchise,  but  to  Jamaica  where  he  has  not,  and 
where  he  has  actually  been  deprived  of  some  of  the 
rights  he  once  possessed,  "f 


*  "The  Africander  Land,"  A.  R.  Colquhoun,  1906,  p.  120. 
p.  124. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  407 

This  question  of  differentiating  between  the  "native," 
or  Negro,  and  the  " coloured,"  or  mulatto  class,  is  now 
engaging  the  serious  attention  of  commissioners  and 
individuals  in  South  Africa,  and  it  is  altogether  pos 
sible  that  they  may  evolve  some  scheme  after  the 
Jamaican  plan.  Our  political  system,  and  our  sectional 
and  partisan  manner  of  treating  the  subject,  would 
probably  render  impossible  any  such  formal  action  in 
America.  If  it  came  at  all  it  would  have  to  be  as  a 
gradual  process  of  evolution.  And  whether  it  ever 
comes  or  not  will  depend  largely  upon  the  coloured 
class  themselves.  Looking  at  the  matter  squarely 
and  candidly,  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  race  relations 
here  and  elsewhere,  there  is  no  escaping  certain  fairly 
definite  conclusions  as  to  the  course  of  such  rela 
tions.  First,  the  white  race  bases  its  opinion  of 
all  members  of  the  Negro  race  upon  its  observation 
of  the  types  with  which  it  is  most  familiar,  which 
accounts  for  the  difference  between  Northern  and 
Southern  opinion  of  "the  Negro."  The  attributes 
of  the  mass  thus  become  identified  with  colour,  and 
are  attached  naturally  to  all  individuals  of  that  colour. 
The  white  attitude  toward  individual  members  of  the 
race  will  in  the  main  be  determined  by  white  attitude 
toward  the  mass. 

Second,  the  natural  tendency  is  to  associate  the 
disability  of  colour,  under  which  the  Negro  universally 
labours  as  a  race,  with  all  persons  having  any  visible 
admixture  of  Negro  blood.  This  tendency  operates 
more  or  less  strongly  as  the  persons  of  mixed  blood 


408      The  American  Race  Problem 

identify  themselves  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  with 
Negroes  of  unmixed  blood.  Third,  the  pronounced 
voluntary  identification  of  themselves  with  Negroes  is 
largely  sentimental  on  the  part  of  most  mulattoes  who 
do  so.  In  many  cases  they  are  much  more  white  than 
Negro,  and  often  belong  in  law  to  the  former  race. 
Fourth,  the  white  race  will  not  discriminate  between 
the  Negro  and  mulatto  until  they  first  discriminate 
between  themselves.  Whether  such  inter-racial  dis 
crimination  would  be  followed  by  similar  white  action 
here  as  fully  as  in  Jamaica,  under  our  system  at  this 
time,  is  problematical.  That  such  an  internal  line  is 
developing  there  is  abundant  evidence;  that  it  will 
some  time  make  itself  felt,  over  the  protests  and  efforts 
of  mulatto  leaders,  is  not  unlikely.* 

The  absence  of  divisional  lines  is  characteristic  of  all 
embryonic  social  organisations.  As  the  organisation 
develops,  lines  develop,  and  social  groups,  "sets"  or 
"circles"  come  into  existence,  each  with  its  own  fairly 
distinct  membership.  As  long  as  the  number  of  higher 
types  of  either  Negroes  or  mulattoes  might  be  insuffi- 


*  I  have  never  discussed  the  matter,  personally  or  by  correspondence,  with 
any  mulatto  "leader"  who  was  willing  to  admit  that  any  such  line  was  possible, 
likely,  or  desirable.  I  have  discussed  it  with  few  of  the  rank  and  file  who  did 
not  favour  it,  and  frankly  own  the  opposite  view.  The  reasons  in  each  case 
are  obvious.  It  should  be  remarked  here  that  no  absolutely  exclusive  line  is 
openly  established  in  Jamaica.  The  coloured  class  is  recognised  as  such,  but 
this  does  not  mean  that  no  black  man  is  admitted  to  this  class,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  that  every  mulatto  is  admitted,  on  the  other.  Those  persons  of  mixed  blood 
whose  habits,  tastes,  and  acquirements  identify  them  with  Negroes,  find  their 
1  evel  with  the  masses  of  that  race.  The  occasional  individual,  without  apparent 
admixture  of  white  blood,  whose  education,  habits  and  capacity  tend  to  sepa 
rate  him  from  the  blacks,  finds  his  way  into  the  mulatto  class.  As  to  the  more 
intimate  social  relations  between  "coloured"  and  "black"  I  am  not  prepared  to 
•peak. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  409 

cient  to  form  separate  social  organisations  the  line 
of  cleavage  between  the  two  would  hardly  become 
apparent.  With  increasing  development  the  possibility 
of  distinct  cultural  groups  increases,  and  the  movement 
toward  separate  organisation  along  colour  lines  nor 
mally  follows.  It  came  about  in  Haiti.*  It  is  indis 
putably  existent  in  Liberia.  Here  and  there  it  makes 
itself  felt  in  America,  f 

Whether  such  physical  separation  ever  takes  place 
or  not,  we  are  foolish  to  ignore  the  existence  of  the 
differences  upon  which  it  might  be  based.  And  no 
where  is  this  truer  than  in  our  treatment  of  the  Negro 
in  politics.  If  we  wish  to  appoint  mulattoes  to  office 
(and,  barring  an  occasional  apparent  exception,  they 
are  here,  just  as  in  Jamaica,  the  only  ones  who  receive 
positions  of  any  importance),  let  us  not  do  so  under  an 
almost  inexcusably  ignorant  misapprehension.  We 
have  reached  the  point  where  we  should  know  and 

*  Christophe  was  probably  primarily  responsible  for  the  line  between  the 
blacks  and  mulattoes.  Even  a  strain  of  white  blood  has  never  been  popular 
in  Haiti.  Mr.  Ober  says  that  Toussaint  1'Ouverture  was  not  held  in  as  high 
esteem  as  either  Christophe  or  Dessalines,  because  "he  was  a  coloured  man 
in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  the  hated  blanc." — "Our  West  Indian  Neigh 
bours,"  p.  169. 

t  The  colour  line  has  been  drawn  occasionally  in  the  selection  of  officers  for 
the  most  prominent  coloured  woman's  organisation  in  this  country.  Not  long 
since  the  same  thing  came  out  in  a  "mass  meeting"  in  Washington,  to  protest 
against  certain  features  of  the  public  school  management.  According  to  a 
local  paper  the  origin  of  the  trouble  was  a  report  that  "a  committee  of  mulat 
toes"  had  called  on  the  superintendent  of  schools  "to  ascertain  if  it  were  not 
possible  to  draw  a  colour  line  in  the  coloured  schools;  that  is  to  have  the  black 
Negroes  attend  one  class  and  the  lighter  coloured  Negroes  another."  It  was 
charged  that  the  black  children  "are  coerced  into  attending  the  manual  training 
school,  while  the  lighter  coloured  pupils  are  encouraged  to  attend  the  M  Street 
High  School  and  fit  themselves  for  teachers'  places." — Washington  Herald, 
Jan.  31,  1907.  I  have  attended  services  in  a  coloured  church  in  Washington 
in  which  not  a  Negro  was  present.  The  minister,  choir  and  congregation  were, 
on  the  occasion  in  question,  without  exception  mulattoes. 


410      The  American  Race  Problem 

realise  that  such  appointments  are  devoid  of  the  signi 
ficance  to  the  Negro  which  our  cherished  delusions 
may  honestly  have  attached  to  them.  We  like  to 
imagine  that  our  democratic  institutions  possess  the 
subtle  virtue  of  destroying  not  only  class  but  racial 
distinctions  as  well.  In  fact  they  have  done,  and  can 
do,  neither.  Human  nature  is  older  than  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States.  It  is  also  probably  more 
permanently  established. 

Men  fall  by  nature,  or  at  least  naturally,  into  both 
class  and  racial  groups.  The  most  our  institutions 
have  been  able  thus  far  to  do,  is  to  make  possible  the 
rise  of  individuals  from  their  class  or  racial  environment . 
It  is  not  likely  that  more  than  this  can  be  done.  Cer 
tainly  it  is  humanly  impossible  to  abolish  either  class 
or  racial  lines.  In  the  case  of  the  Negro  masses  a  class 
and  a  racial  line  run  in  concentric  circles.  There  are 
a  few  old  English  words  at  the  use  of  which  we  need 
lessly  shy  in  this  country.  One  of  these  is  "peasant." 
The  Negro  masses  of  America  at  present  form  a  peasant 
class,  and  we  could  much  more  truly  help  them  by 
frankly  recognising  the  fact.  Every  race  has  its 
peasant  stage,  and  in  his  evolutionary  processes  the 
Negro  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  part  of  wisdom  to  recognise  the  existence  of 
this  great  class,  numbering  millions  of  people,  to  recog 
nise  it  frankly  as  such,  and  to  wisely  study  its  neces 
sities  and  honestly  administer  to  its  needs.  It  does 
not  need  politics,  and  it  does  not  need  agitation.  In 
the  words  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  at  Tuskegee,  and  of  Booker 


The  Negro  in  Politics  411 

T.  Washington  everywhere,  it  does  need  the  friendship 
and  cooperation  of  the  Southern  white  men  among 
and  with  whom  its  life  must  be  lived.  It  needs  trained 
and  educated  teachers;  it  needs  education  along  moral 
lines ;  it  needs  an  honest,  moral  and  educated  ministry ; 
it  needs  protection,  encouragement  and  advice  from 
the  white  man  nearest  at  hand;  and  it  needs  to  be  let 
alone.*  Above  all  it  needs  to  be  dissociated  in  the 
minds  of  politicians,  doctrinaires,  and  practical  men 
from  the  higher  mulatto  class,  which  they  constantly 
but  unconsciously  have  in  mind  in  all  their  considera 
tions  and  discussions  of  "the  American  Negro." 

After  all  is  said  that  can  be  said  of  abstract  right  and 
duty,  of  justice  and  oppression,  of  constitutions  and 
laws,  of  Negroes  and  mulattoes  and  white  men  in  pol 
itics,  to  this  complexion  does  it  come  at  last:  "The 
suffrage  never  has  been  and  is  not  to-day  regulated 
on  any  other  principle  than  expediency."  This  is 
the  sane  conclusion  of  a  review  of  the  history  of  American 
suffrage  by  one  of  the  foremost  living  American  his 
torians,  Professor  McMaster,  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  He  was  discussing  the  question  of 

*  One  of  the  most  pernicious  influences  to-day  operating  upon  the  general 
situation  is  the  Northern  mulatto  agitator.  He  is  generally  utterly  ignorant 
of  Southern  conditions,  and  frequently  equally  so  of  the  Southern  Negro  whom 
he  would  keep  in  constant  turmoil.  In  enumerating 'what  he  calls  "the  elements 
of  danger  in  the  present  situation,"  Booker  T.  Washington  mentions  first  of 
all  the  advice  of  extremists  among  Northern  Negroes,  with  "little  knowledge  of 
actual  conditions  in  the  South,"  "to  resort  to  armed  resistance  or  the  use  of 
the  torch  in  order  to  secure  justice."  He  has  spoken  nothing  truer  than  when 
he  said  that  such  "incendiary  utterances  from  black  men  in  the  North  will 
tend  to  add  to  the  burdens  of  our  people  in  the  South  rather  than  relieve  them." 
— "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  pp.  205,  ao6.  But  evidently  he  was  using 
"Black"  in  its  poetic  sense. 


412     The  American  Race  Problem 

suffrage  in  relation  to  our  colonial  dependencies,  and 
his  summary  is  applicable  to  the  political  problems 
presented  by  all  backward  races,  to  the  Negro  equally 
with  the  Filipino:  "Congress  is  indeed  morally  bound 
to  give  the  very  best  government  that  circumstances 
will  permit;  but  it  is  also  morally  bound  not  to  be 
carried  away  by  theories  of  human  rights  which  even 
the  States  themselves  ignore.  We  have  no  such  thing 
as  unrestricted  universal  suffrage.  In  the  states  east 
of  the  Mississippi  no  woman  may  cast  a  ballot  for 
governor,  for  a  congressman,  or  for  Presidential  electors. 
Yet  in  each  of  them  are  numbers  of  women  who  own 
property  and  pay  taxes  amounting  sometimes  to 
thousands  of  dollars  a  year.  What  government  derives 
its  just  powers  from  their  consent?  Are  they  not 
taxed  without  representation?  Do  they  not  obey 
laws  in  the  making  of  which  they  have  no  voice?  All 
this  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  broad  doctrines 
on  which  our  republican  form  of  government  is  founded. 
The  truth  is,  the  suffrage  never  has  been  and  is  not 
to-day  regulated  on  any  other  principle  than  expe 
diency.  Nor  is  this  to  be  regretted.  No  government 
is  worth  a  rush  unless  it  is  practical ;  and  to  be  practical 
it  must  not  be  in  advance  of  the  intelligence  and  ca 
pacity  for  self-government  possessed  by  the  people  for 
whose  welfare  it  has  been  created.  This  has  been 
the  characteristic  of  every  government  yet  set  up 
in  state  or  territory,  and  it  is  greatly  to  our  credit; 
and  this  is  the  course  we  must  pursue  in  the  treatment 
of  any  people,  whatever  their  stage  of  civilisation, 


The  Negro  in  Politics  413 

4 

who  may  come  to  us  with  new  acquisitions  of  territory."* 
And  he  might  have  added,  or  who  have  themselves 
been  already  " acquired." 

And  if  it  be  asked,  what  is  expedient  or  wise,  and 
who  is  to  judge  of  its  wisdom  or  expediency,  we 
need  not  go  far  for  an  answer.  The  judges  will  be  those 
who  are  able  to  enforce  their  decree,  and  to  compel  the 
approving  verdict  of  the  world  upon  their  course. 
Forty-one  years  ago  in  Boston  a  farseeing  man  thus 
foretold  whose  this  voice  would  be  if  the  then  impending 
conflict  were  forced  upon  the  Negro  and  the  white  man 
in  the  South:  "It  may  be  asked,  why  not  demand 
suffrage  for  coloured  men,  in  season  for  their  vote  in  the 
business  of  reorganisation?  My  answer  is  — I  assume 
that  the  coloured  men  are  in  favour  of  those  measures 
which  the  Union  needs  to  have  adopted.  But  it  would 
be  idle  to  reorganise  those  states  by  the  coloured  vote. 
If  the  popular  vote  of  the  white  race  is  not  to  be  had 
in  favour  of  the  guarantees  justly  required,  then  I  am 
in  favour  of  holding  on  just  where  we  now  are.  I  am 
not  in  favour  of  a  surrender  of  the  present  rights  of  the 
Union  to  a  struggle  between  a  white  minority  aided 
by  the  freedmen  on  the  one  hand,  against  a  majority 
of  the  white  race  on  the  other.  I  would  not  consent, 
having  rescued  those  states  by  arms  from  secession  and 
rebellion,  to  turn  them  over  to  anarchy  and  chaos.  I 
have,  however,  no  doubt,  none  whatever,  of  our  right 
to  stipulate  for  coloured  suffrage.  The  question  is 


*  Annexation  and  Universal  Suffrage,    "J.  B.  McMaster,  Forum,  December, 
1898,  p.  402. 


4H      The  American  Race  Problem 

one  of  statesmanship,  not  a  question  of  constitutional 
limitation."  And  he  had  just  uttered  this  prophetic 
declaration:  "When  the  day  arrives,  which  must 
surely  come,  when  an  amnesty,  substantially  universal, 
shall  be  proclaimed,  the  leading  minds  of  the  South, 
who  by  temporary  policy  and  artificial  rules  had  been, 
for  the  while,  disfranchised,  will  resume  their  influence 
and  their  sway.  The  capacity  of  leadership  is  a  gift, 
not  a  device.  They  whose  courage,  talents  and  will 
entitle  them  to  lead,  will  lead.  And  these  men,  not 
then  estopped  by  their  own  consent  or  participation 
in  the  business  of  reorganisation,  may  not  be  slow  to 
question  the  validity  of  great  public  transactions  en 
acted  during  their  own  disfranchisement.  If  it  is  asked, 
in  reply,  'What  can  they  do?'  and  'What  can  come  of 
their  discontent?'  I  answer,  that  while  I  do  not  know 
just  what  they  can  do,  nor  what  may  come  of  it,  neither 
do  I  know  what  they  may  not  attempt,  nor  what  they 
may  not  accomplish.  I  only  know  that  we  ought  to 
demand,  and  to  secure,  the  cooperation  of  the  strongest 
and  ablest  minds  and  the  natural  leaders  of  opinion 
in  the  South.  If  we  cannot  gain  their  support  of  the 
just  measures  needful  for  the  work  of  safe  reorganisation, 
reorganisation  will  be  delusive  and  full  of  danger."* 
A  generation  later  another  Northern  man  moralised 
in  this  wise  upon  one  concrete  instance  of  the  "anarchy 
and  chaos"  against  which  Governor  Andrew  had  fore 
warned  triumphant  partisanship's  unlistening  ear: 


*  Valedictory  Address.     Gov.  John  A.  Andrew,  to  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
Jan.  4,  1866,  Mass.  Senate  Doc.  No.  2,  pp.  18,  15,  16. 


The  Negro  in  Politics  415 

"No  one  who  has  witnessed  the  condition  of  affairs 
in  the  South  can  believe  that  the  Negro  is,  at  the  present 
time,  capable  of  governing.  All  his  efforts  in  this 
direction  have  been  lamentable,  direful  failures. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  one  acquainted  with  the  spirit 
and  temper  of  the  Southern  people  believes  that  the 
Negro,  whatever  his  future  capacity  may  be,  will  be 
allowed  to  govern  the  white  race.  These  two  assertions, 
that  the  Negro  cannot  govern,  and  that  the  white  men 
will  not  let  him  govern,  are  axioms."* 

Perhaps  we  may  learn  something  from  the  conclu 
sions  of  yet  another  Northern  man,  a  citizen  of  the 
great  state  of  which  Andrew  was  governor.  He  is  a 
historian  of  the  modern  school,  and  in  closing  the  labour 
of  nineteen  years  he  expresses  this  conviction:  "No 
large  policy  in  our  country  has  ever  been  so  conspicuous 
a  failure  as  that  of  forcing  universal  Negro  suffrage 
upon  the  South.  .  .  .  From  the  Republican 
policy  came  no  real  good  to  the  Negroes.  Most  of  them 
developed  no  political  capacity,  and  the  few  who 
raised  themselves  above  the  mass  did  not  reach  a  high 
order  of  intelligence.  At  different  periods  two  served 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  thirteen  in  the  House; 
they  left  no  mark  on  the  legislation  of  their  time;  none 
of  them,  in  comparison  with  their  white  associates, 
attained  the  least  distinction.  When  the  Southern 
states  recovered  home  rule,  Negroes  were  of  course 
no  longer  sent  to  Congress  from  the  South  but  they 


*  "The  Race  War  in  North  Carolina, "  Henry  Litchfield  West,  Forum,  Jan, 
1899,  p.  590- 


4i6      The  American  Race  Problem 

have  had  a  fair  chance  at  the  North  where  they  obtained 
the  suffrage  in  every  state  within  a  few  years  after  the 
Civil  War.  Politically  very  active  and  numerous 
enough  in  some  of  the  Northern  states  to  form  a  political 
force,  that  has  to  be  reckoned  with,  no  one  of  them 
(I  believe)  has  ever  been  sent  to  Congress;  few  get 
into  legislature  or  city  council.  Very  few  if  any  are 
elected  to  administrative  offices  of  responsibility. 
The  Negro's  political  activity  is  rarely  of  a  nature  to 
identify  him  with  any  movement  on  a  high  plane. 
He  takes  no  part  in  civil  service  or  tariff  reform;  he 
was  not  a  factor  in  the  contest  for  honest  money;  he 
is  seldom,  if  ever,  heard  in  advocacy  of  pure  municipal 
government  and  for  him  good  government  associations 
have  no  attraction.  He  is  greedy  for  office  and  emolu 
ment;  it  is  for  this  reason  that  he  arrogantly  asserts 
his  right  to  recognition;  and  he  has  had  remarkable 
success  in  securing  offices  under  Federal  Government. 
In  a  word,  he  has  been  politically  a  failure  and  he  could 
not  have  been  otherwise.  In  spite  of  all  the  warnings 
of  science  and  political  experience,  he  was  started  at  the 
top  and,  as  is  the  fate  of  most  such  unfortunates,  he  fell 
to  the  bottom.  .  .  .  His  old  masters,  who  under 
stood  him  best  and  who,  chastened  by  defeat  and  by 
adversity,  were  really  his  best  friends,  were  alienated. 
He  fell  into  the  hands  of  rascals  who  through  his  vote 
fattened  on  the  spoils  of  office.  He  had  a  brief  period 
of  mastery  and  indulgence  during  which  his  mental 
and  moral  education  was  deplorable  /and  his  worst 
passions  were  catered  to.  Finally  by  force,  by  craft 


The  Negro  in  Politics  417 

and  by  law  his  old  masters  have  deprived  him  of  the 
ballot,  and,  after  a  number  of  years  of  political  power, 
he  has  been  set  back  to  the  point  where  he  should  have 
started  directly  after  emancipation.  He  is  trying  to 
learn  the  lesson  of  life  with  the  work  made  doubly  hard 
by  the  Saturnalia  he  has  passed  through."* 

And  from  it  all  what  lesson  do  we  learn?  Nowhere 
in  all  our  public  life  does  partisan  intent  and  thought 
approach  so  dangerously  near  to  criminal  act  as  when 
it  seeks  for  selfish  ends  to  keep  alive  the  torch  it  lighted 
from  the  flames  of  war.  Responsibility  goes  with 
power,  and  those  in  control  of  the  Government  to-day 
are  the  same,  as  party  goes,  who  placed  the  ballot  in 
the  Negro's  childish  hand.  When  the  South  in  despera 
tion  took  it  from  him  by  art  or  force,  she  was  denounced 
as  for  a  common  crime.  When  her  older,  wiser  men 
devised  a  means  by  which  the  Negro's  racial  history 
and  traits  could  be  invoked  to  his  own  and  the  white 
man's  good,  still  fault  was  found.  The  cry  of  fraud 
was  raised,  and  threats  were  made.  Those  who  have 
control  of  the  machinery  of  government  owe  this  much 
to  the  country:  They  should  either  take  action  or  let 
the  matter  rest.  Quadrennial  threats  are  entirely 
sufficient  to  keep  the  Negro  vote  in  line,  it  is  true. 
The  pitiful  thing  about  that  vote,  as  many  of  the  ablest 
of  the  race  admit,  is  the  ease  with  which  it  can  be  kept 
in  line  by  threats  against  the  South  or  promises  to  itself. 


*  "History  of  the  United  States,"  James  Ford  Rhodes,  Vol.  7,  pp.  168,  169, 


418      The  American  Race  Problem 

But  these  platform  threats  only  serve  to  provoke  and 
perpetuate  a  sectionalism  which  fattens  politicians 
throughout  the  country  but  injures  the  country  itself. 

And  the  country  has  a  right  to  demand  from  politi 
cians  some  definite  action  in  the  case.  The  threat 
should  be  executed,  or  this  should  be  said  to  the  Negro: 
You  are  an  American  citizen.  As  such  you  derive 
your  political  privileges  only  from  the  state  wherein 
you  reside.  You  have  been  the  object  of  Congressional 
solicitude  for  forty  years,  and  it  has  profited  you  noth 
ing.  .  Take  the  matter  up  yourselves  with  the  white 
people  of  your  respective  states,  and  see  if  you  two 
cannot  come  to  terms  at  home.  To  the  South  should 
be  said:  After  more  than  a  generation  of  worse  than 
fruitless  strife,  we  propose  to  leave  the  matter  of  Negro 
suffrage  to  you  and  the  Negro.  We  shall  look  to  you 
two  for  at  least  better  results  than  we  have  been  able 
thus  far  to  secure  without  your  aid. 

It  is  of  course  too  much  to  hope  that  local  politicians 
will  cease  to  use  the  Negro  vote,  either  as  a  tool  in  one 
section  or  a  scarehead  in  the  other.  But  the  great 
body  of  American  people  have  a  right  to  expect  some 
thing  more  from  men  in  control  of  national  affairs. 
A  glance  at  the  record  shows  that  not  one  platform 
has  ever  been  framed  by  the  party  which  has  been 
almost  unbrokenly  in  power  since  the  Negro  was  eman 
cipated  which  has  not  contained  its  "Negro  plank." 
Almost  invariably  the  other  great  party  has  answered 
in  kind.  And  in  each  case  it  is  mere  brutum  fulmen  — 
an  opfra  bouffe  affair,  with  the  Negro  occupying  the 


The  Negro  in  Politics  419 

centre  of  the  serio  comic  stage.  There  is  nothing 
substantial  in  these  periodic  threats. 

One  of  the  most  astute  politicians  this  country  has 
produced,  James  A.  Garfield,  after  as  earnest  delibera 
tion  and  as  thorough  study  as  the  question  is  ever 
likely  to  receive,  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago 
openly  abandoned  the  effort  to  reduce  Southern  repre 
sentation,  as  an  impracticable  proposition.  He  found 
that  the  framers  of  the  XIV.  Amendment  had  authorised 
a  line  of  action  for  the  execution  of  which  they  had 
palpably  failed  to  provide  the  necessary  machinery. 
Yet  we  go  ahead  with  our  strife-breeding  policy,  and 
every  four  years  hoodwink  the  Negro  and  stir  up  the 
South  by  a  threat  which  cannot  be  enforced,  and  prob 
ably  is  not  intended  to  be.  It  is  idle  to  talk  about 
the  Negro  having  been  "removed  from  politics"  in  the 
South,  as  long  as  Northern  state  and  national  platforms 
and  politicians  use  him  to  furnish  an  exhaustless  supply 
of  ammunition  for  consumption  South  of  the  line. 
It  is  equally  idle  to  talk  of  a  division  among  Southern 
white  people  as  long  as  Republican  presidents  deliber 
ately  and  tenaciously  adhere  to  a  policy  which  guar 
antees  a  "solid  South." 

We  need  be  neither  radicals  on  the  one  hand  nor 
doctrinaires  on  the  other  in  this  matter.  We  need 
only  have  the  courage  and  wisdom  to  face  the  truth. 
And  it  is  as  true  to-day  as  when  John  A.  Andrew  talked 
to  his  people,  that  any  plan  of  action,  any  policy,  any 
line  of  conduct,  which  concerns  the  Southern  Negro 
and  ignores,  or  cannot  secure,  the  support  and  coopera- 


420     The  American  Race  Problem 

tion  of  the  Southern  white  man,  is  "delusive  and  full 
of  danger."  The  question  is  to-day  as  truly  one  of 
statesmanship,  rather  than  constitutional  limitation 
or  right,  as  it  was  when  Governor  Andrew  so  declared 
it  to  be  in  1866.  The  Southern  white  man,  in  the  face 
of  handicaps  and  obstacles  which  might  well  have 
palsied  a  less  determined  people,  has  demonstrated 
his  ability  absolutely  to  control  his  domestic  affairs, 
regardless  of  the  Negro  within  or  the  white  man  without. 
It  cannot  be  questioned  that  he  will  do  so  in  the  future, 
as  he  has  in  the  past.  Whatever  share  in  that  control 
the  Negro  masses  may  be  permitted  to  have,  can  come 
only  as  a  grant  from  those  who  hold  it  within  the  hollow 
of  an  iron  hand.* 

Every  policy  of  this  Government  which  has  touched 
the  Negro's  political  life  has  been  based  upon  the  as 
sumed  opposition  of  the  Southern  people.  And  failure 


*  Like  the  preceding  paper  this  discussion  is  immediately  related  to  concrete 
incidents.  In  another  form  it  was  submitted  for  magazine  publication  during 
the  national  campaign  of  1904.  The  Republican  platform  of  1900  denounced 
as  "revolutionary"  the  efforts  of  state  governments  "to  avoid  the  purpose'* 
of  the  XV.  Amendment.  The  Democratic  platform  was  silent  on  the  subject. 
The  Republican  platform  of  1904  declared  in  favour  of  Congressional  action  to 
determine  whether  the  franchise  had  been  "unconstitutionally  limited"  by 
any  state,  with  a  demand  for  a  reduction  of  representation  in  Congress  and 
the  electoral  college  if  such  limitation  were  found  to  exist.  The  Democratic 
platform  replied  by  "deprecating"  such  efforts  "to  kindle  anew  the  embers  of 
racial  and  sectional  strife."  My  interest  in  the  action  of  each  convention  was 
largely  that  of  a  student  of  the  race  problem,  and  I  observed  as  closely  as  possible 
the  effect  of  the  Republican  declarations  upon  Southern  white  people  and  on 
Negroes  generally.  The  net  result,  absolutely  the  only  result,  was  the  contin 
ued  support  of  the  Negro  in  doubtful  States  (which  was  certain  in  any  event) , 
and  the  furnishing  of  texts  to  Southern  speakers.  Seven  years  have  elapsed 
since  1900  and  three  since  1904,  yet  there  has  been  no  "investigation"  and 
no  "reduction."  But  the  Negro  is  pitifully  gullible,  and  can  be  influenced  as 
easily  by  similar  declarations  in  1908  as  he  has  been  in  the  past.  I  believe 
there  are  to-day  many  thousands  of  people  in  the  Southern  States  who  would 
actually  welcome  any  Congressional  action  in  the  matter,  eyen  to  a  reduction 


The  Negro  in  Politics  421 

is  written  large  across  the  record.  Why  not  raise  the 
matter  out  of  the  quagmire  of  present  politics  and 
ancient  sectionalism,  and  frankly  leave  it  where  it 
belongs,  and  where  the  very  logic  of  its  inherent  ele 
ments  inevitably  must  some  day  place  it,  with  the 
people  of  the  South,  both  white  and  black?  Why  not 
try  the  plan?  Its  execution  would  be  extremely 
simple.  What  the  Negro  needs  just  now  is  a  political 
"rest  cure."  His  daily  litany  should  include  a  prayer 
to  be  let  alone. 

of  representation,  if  only  it  would  be  final,  and  would  put  an  end  to  the 
periodic  agitation  of  the  subject.  My  own  belief  is  that  such  action  is  wholly 
impracticable,  for  the  fundamental  reason  that  it  is  impossible  to  devise  any 
means  for  determining  the  basis  of  reduction.  There  is  simply  no  machinery 
for  ascertaining  the  number  of  voters  who  merely  fail  to  go  to  the  polls,  and  the 
number  who  are  "unconstitutionally  prevented"  from  voting.  This  writer 
is  not  a  politician,  and  his  interest  in  politics  is  wholly  abstract.  The  conviction 
is  non-partisan  and  disinterested  that  the  cessation  of  national  political  agitation 
of  the  subject  would  inevitably  be  followed  by  similar  cessation  in  the  States, 
from  both  of  which  the  Negro  masses  would  be  the  chief  beneficiaries. 


PART  FOUR 
AN  UNCONSIDERED  ELEMENT 

IX.      THE  MULATTO  FACTOR  IN  THE  RACE  PROBLEM 


IX 

THE  MULATTO  FACTOR  IN   THE  RACE  PROBLEM  •'•' 

IT  IS  a  matter  of  regret  that  in  organising  the  twelfth 
census  it  was  determined  to  attempt  no  separate 
enumeration  of  the  mulatto  element  of  our  population, 
using  the  term  in  its  popular  sense,  as  denoting  all 
persons  having  any  admixture  of  white  and  Negro 
blood.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  failure  to  do  this 
will  in  any  wise  affect  the  solution  of  our  race  problem, 
for  to  do  so  would  be  to  regard  it  as  admitting  of  a 
sort  of  blackboard  treatment,  the  only  essentials  to 
success  being  an  array  of  statistics  and  their  proper 
handling.  But  anyone  who  endeavours  to  go  beyond 
the  superficialities  of  the  problem  —  to  do  something 
more  than  academically  consider,  from  his  particular 
standpoint,  its  external  symptoms  —  must  feel  that 
such  data  would  at  least  be  of  value,  whatever  ideas 
he  may  entertain  as  to  its  ultimate  solution. 

Any  consideration  which  fails  to  reckon  this  mulatto 
element  as  an  independent  factor  ignores  what  is  pos 
sibly  the  most  important  feature  of  the  problem,  and 
is  faulty  in  its  premises,  whatever  the  theoretical  con 
clusion  arrived  at.  Yet  we  see  this  constantly  done, 
and  of  the  hundreds  of  such  discussions  annually  en- 

*  From  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1903. 

425 


426     The  American  Race  Problem 

gaged  in,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  scarcely  one  is  entirely 
free  from  this  blunder.  There  appears  in  them  but  a 
single  "  problem,"  and  every  panacea  proposed  —  educa 
tion,  voting,  industrial  training,  or  what  not  —  is  made 
to  fit  the  same  Procrustean  bed.  It  is  a  primal  postulate 
of  these  discussions  that  the  Negro  is  an  undeveloped 
not  an  inferior  race.  They  fail  to  realise  that  back 
wardness  and  inferiority,  as  long  as  the  backward 
state  exists,  are  for  all  practical  purposes  synony 
mous  terms.  To  this  basic  error  may  be  attributed 
much  of  the  confusion  which  surrounds  the  entire 
subject. 

We  have  too  long  been  guilty  of  the  folly  of  trying 
to  legislate  the  Negro  into  a  white  man,  and  a  pyramid 
of  failures  has  apparently  not  yet  convinced  us  of  the 
futility  of  the  undertaking.  We  have  ignored  the 
scientific  truth  of  the  ethnic  differences  among  the 
human  family,  and  have  blindly  disregarded  the  fact 
that  the  Negro,  in  common  with  all  other  races,  pos 
sesses  certain  persistent,  distinguishing  characteristics. 
Foolishly  attempting  to  evade  the  stubborn  fact  that 
the  Negro  in  Africa  is  to-day  just  what  we  know  him 
to  have  been  since  he  first  appeared  on  that  continent, 
we  have  sought  in  slavery  an  excuse  for  the  natural 
and  inevitable  resemblance  between  the  native  and 
transplanted  branches  of  the  family,  and  have  pro 
ceeded  toward  the  American  Negro  as  though  heredity 
could  be  overridden  by  constitutions  and  laws.  Prob 
ably  nothing  has  contributed  more  toward  the  persis 
tence  of  this  effort  at  creating  an  artificial  being  than 


The  Mulatto  Factor  427 

the  absolute  elimination  of  the  mulatto  equation  from 
all  our  considerations  of  the  subject. 

It  is  this  that  has  enabled  those  who  have  so  long 
ignored  the  laws  and  operations  of  heredity  to  point, 
in  proof  of  the  correctness  of  their  theory  of  race- 
problem  treatment,  to  the  achievements  of  men  loosely 
accredited  to  the  Negro  race.  Unless  through  dis 
cussion  the  American  people  be  able  to  reach  a  common 
ground,  a  century  of  polemical  strife  will  accomplish 
no  tangible  good;  and  I  know  of  no  surer  means  of 
reaching  a  working  agreement  than  by  the  frank 
acknowledgment  of  the  mulatto  factor  in  the  race 
problem.  I  would  not  be  guilty  of  complicating  a 
situation  already  sufficiently  complex,  through  the 
introduction  of  a  new  factor ;  I  rather  hold  to  the  hopeful 
belief  that  the  consideration  of  one  which  already 
exists,  though  commonly  ignored,  may  at  least  serve 
to  simplify  discussion,  even  though  it  fail  at  once  to 
point  a  way  out  of  existing  difficulties.  When  we 
recognise  the  very  simple  and  very  patent  fact  that 
the  intermixture  of  white  and  black  races  has  given 
us  a  racial  type  that  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other; 
when  we  get  far  enough  along  to  separate  this  type 
from  the  Negro  masses  in  our  efforts  at  determining 
what  may  be  best  for  the  latter;  when  the  South  is 
willing  to  lay  at  the  white  man's  door  many  of  the 
failings  of  this  mulatto  type  and  much  of  the  meanness 
which  he  too  frequently  exhibits,  and  Northern  opinion 
is  sufficiently  candid  and  honest  to  persist  no  longer 
in  ascribing  all  his  virtues  and  accomplishments  to  the 


428     The  American  Race  Problem 

Negro,  I  think  we  shall  have  made  a  distinct  gain  in 
race-problem  discussion. 

One  of  the  greatest  needs  in  the  equipment  of  those 
who  discuss  the  Negro  from  a  distance  is  a  better  knowl 
edge  of  the  real  Negro,  and  nothing  would  so  promote 
this  knowledge  as  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  in  credit 
ing  his  race  with  the  achievements  of  its  mulatto  element 
they  but  becloud  the  question.  How  may  we  reason 
ably  hope  to  know  what  is  best  to  be  done  for  the 
Negro  until  we  first  truly  grasp  the  facts  of  his  moral 
and  intellectual  possibilities  and  limitations,  as  well 
as  needs?  And  how  may  we  hope  to  do  this  under 
our  present  method  of  treating  the  subject? 

In  reviewing  the  work  of  the  most  distinguished 
writer  accredited  to  the  Negro  race  —  though  he  has 
scarcely  a  visible  trace  of  Negro  blood  in  his  veins  — 
the  foremost  living  American  author  has  used  this 
language:  "They  [referring  to  the  mulattoes]  need 
not  be  ashamed  of  the  race  from  which  they  have 
sprung,  and  whose  exile  they  share;  for  in  many  of  the 
arts  it  has  already  shown,  during  a  single  generation 
of  freedom  gifts  which  slavery  apparently  only  ob 
scured."  This  criticism  develops  the  very  foundation 
of  the  theory  upon  which  all  such  discussions  are  based, 
and  which  we  have  referred  to  above  —  that  the  Negro 
is  an  undeveloped,  not  an  inferior  race  —  that  in  all 
essential  particulars  the  white  man  and  the  black  are 
by  nature  equally  endowed.  Thus  is  placidly  ignored 
the  truth  that  the  Negro  is  one  of  the  oldest  races  of 
which  we  have  any  knowledge,  and  that  its  very  failure 


The  Mulatto  Factor  429 

to  develop  itself  in  its  own  habitat,  while  the  Caucasian, 
Mongolian,  and  others  have  gone  forward,  is  in  itself 
sufficient  proof  of  inferiority.  Conveniently  disregard 
ing  the  fact  of  the  persistence  of  a  racial  status  fixed 
several  thousand  years  ago,  they  tell  us  that  forty 
years  of  freedom  are  not  enough  to  develop  "gifts 
which  slavery  apparently  only  obscured." 

The  years,  both  of  slavery  and  of  freedom,  passed 
by  the  Negro  on  this  continent  constitute  but  an  insig 
nificant  span  in  the  life  of  that  people;  yet  if  we  blot 
out  the  achievements  of  the  American  Negro  who  has 
passed  through  slavery,  what  has  the  race  left  to  boast 
of?  And  if  we  but  go  one  step  farther,  and  from  the 
achievements  of  the  "American  Negro"  obliterate 
all  that  the  American  mulatto  has  accomplished,  what 
ground  indeed  would  be  left  to  those  whose  sentiment 
and  sympathy  have  apparently  rendered  them  so  forget 
ful  of  scientific  truth? 

In  1902  a  movement  was  inaugurated  in  Congress 
looking  to  the  investigation  of  the  suffrage  laws  of  the 
various  states.  No  attempt  was  made  to  conceal  the 
real  purpose  of  the  movement  and  even  though  we  go 
so  far  as  to  credit  the  proponent  of  the  measure  with 
honesty  of  opinion  as  to  its  necessity,  what  must  be 
thought  of  his  wisdom,  and  of  the  point  of  view  from 
which  he  would  have  the  so-called  "investigation" 
made,  when  he  himself,  in  the  face  of  the  facts  of  history 
and  the  experiences  of  recent  years,  calmly  affirms  that 
"there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Negro  is  capable  of  un 
limited  development,"  and  declares  his  belief  in  the 


430     The  American  Race  Problem 

virtue  of  "participation  in  politics"  as  a  means  of  "up 
lifting  the  race"?  Yet  such  is  our  looseness  of  expres 
sion  in  discussing  this  question,  that  to  challenge  either 
the  wisdom  or  correctness  of  such  views  is  to  hear,  as  their 
sole  support,  a  recital  of  the  achievements  of  "famous 
men  of  the  Negro  race,"  while,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
names  brought  forward  are  merely  those  of  well-known 
mulattoes  —  from  Murillo's  favourite  pupil,  down  to 
Crispus  Attucks,  Benjamin  Banneker,  Douglass,  Bruce, 
Lynch,  DuBois,  Washington,  Chesnutt,  and  others. 

I  am  well  acquainted  with  the  exceptions  that  may 
be  urged  here,  but  this  is  a  plea  for  greater  scientific 
precision  in  laying  the  foundations  of  race-problem 
study  and  treatment,  and  the  student  of  Negro  eth 
nology  knows  that  these  exceptions  are  more  apparent 
than  real.  The  traffic  which  furnished  slaves  to  the 
Americas  and  the  West  Indies  was  no  respecter  of 
ethnic  distinctions,  and,  while  the  great  majority  of 
those  brought  over  were  pure  Negroes,  through  it  a 
few  of  the  higher  types  of  Fulah  and  other  stocks  found 
their  way  into  foreign  servitude,  and  with  their  blood 
have  occasionally  transmitted  some  measure  of  their 
ability.  Othman  dan  Fodio,  the  poet  chief  of  the  Fulahs, 
was  no  more  a  Negro  than  was  Othello,  nor  was  Abdul 
Rahaman,  the  Moorish  chief,  who  was  a  Mississippi 
slave  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century.  Thus  it 
will  not  answer  to  cite  such  sporadic  examples  as  the 
revolutionary  leadership  of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,* 


*  ft  is  now  stated  by  the  best  West  Indian  student  we  have,  Mr.  Ober,  that 
even  Toussaint  was  a  man  of  mixed  blood. 


The  Mulatto  Factor  431 

the  political  cunning  of  Elliott,  or  the  ballads  of 
Dunbar. 

Just  as  the  crossing  of  the  Spaniard  upon  the  Indian 
has  given  us  the  mestizo  of  Central  America  and  Mexico, 
so  the  blending  of  white  and  Negro  blood  has  given  us 
a  type  which  combines  some  of  the  racial  characteris 
tics  — •  good  and  bad  —  of  both  its  progenitors.  But 
in  a  sane  treatment  of  the  race  question  this  hybrid 
can  no  more  be  regarded  as  typical  of  the  potentiality 
of  the  Negro  than  can  Porfirio  Diaz  be  considered  an 
index  to  the  "undeveloped  ability"  of  the  native 
Mexican  Indian  whose  blood  he  has  in  part  inherited. 
It  would  certainly  seem  to  be  the  part  of  wisdom  frankly 
to  recognise  the  Negro's  own  racial  characteristics  and 
honestly  study  them.  But  this  cannot  be  done  so 
long  as  in  our  consideration  of  the  problem  of  what 
is  best  to  be  done  for  him  we  continue  to  confuse  the 
great  mass  of  American  Negroes  with  the  exceptional 
mulatto  types,  and  point  to  the  accomplishments  of 
the  latter  as  evidence  in  support  of  crass  and  precon 
ceived  notions  as  to  the  capacity  of  the  former. 

When  free  from  white  or  mulatto  influence,  the  Negro 
masses  are  of  a  contented,  happy  disposition.  They 
are  docile,  tractable,  and  unambitious  —  with  but  few 
wants,  and  those  easily  satisfied.  They  incline  to 
idleness,  and  though  having  a  tendency  to  the  com 
mission  of  petty  crimes,  are  not  malicious,  and  rarely 
cherish  hatred.  They  care  nothing  for  "the  sacred 
right  of  suffrage,"  and,  when  left  to  their  own  incli 
nations,  will  disfranchise  themselves  by  the  thousand 


432     The  American  Race  Problem 

rather  than  pay  an  annual  poll-tax.  They  infinitely 
prefer  the  freedom  and  privileges  of  a  car  of  their  own 
to  the  restraint  of  one  in  which  they  would  be  com 
pelled  to  mingle  with  white  people.  Surrounded  by 
larger  possibilities  for  material  betterment  than  have 
ever  been  possessed  by  any  land-tilling  people  in  the 
world,  in  the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  church  and  lodge, 
they  fret  not  themselves  because  of  evil-doers,  nor 
trouble  about  "participation  in  politics,"  nor  suffer 
dreams  of  social  equality  to  mar  the  peaceful  tenor 
of  a  care-free  mind. 

No  truer  utterance  was  ever  made,  nor  one  which 
contains  more  of  wise  and  helpful  suggestiveness,  if 
but  taken  to  heart,  than  the  declaration  of  Major- 
General  N.  P.  Banks,  to  a  Boston  audience  in  1864, 
that  "the  people  of  the  North  are  much  more  disturbed 
and  distressed  at  the  condition  of  the  Negro  than  he 
is^  himself."  This  is  the  real  Negro,  the  Negro  of  the 
masses,  not  the  artificial  product  of  vicious  advice  or 
ill-considered  philanthropy.  As  such,  he  presents  few, 
if  any,  serious  problems,  and  none  which  he  may  not 
himself  work  out,  if  let  alone  and  given  time.  But  it 
will  be  an  individual  rather  than  a  race  solution:  the 
industrious  will,  as  children,  acquire  a  common  school 
education,  and  as  adults  will  own  property;  those 
capable  of  higher  things  will  find  for  themselves  a  field 
for  the  exercise  of  their  talents,  just  as  they  are  doing 
to-day ;  the  vicious  and  shiftless  will  be  as  are  the  vicious 
and  shiftless  of  other  races. 

If  we  will  but  study  the  true  sources  of  the  agitation 


The  Mulatto  Factor  433 

over  "Negro  disf ranchisement, "  "Negro  cars,"  the 
deprivation  of  "the  Negro's  rights,"  etc.,  it  will  be 
found  that  in  it  all  the  Negro  takes  but  an  insignificant 
if  any  part.  The  cry  that  goes  up  over  "the  lack  of 
opportunities  under  which  the  Negro  labours,"  and 
the  "injustice  of  race  distinctions,"  does  not  proceed 
from  the  Negro.  It  is  the  voice  of  the  mulatto,  or  that 
of  the  white  politician,  that  is  heard.  If  the  statutes 
of  those  states  which  have  been  charged  with  discrimi 
nating  against  the  Negro  were  not  in  any  wise  enforce 
able  against  the  mulatto,  I  strongly  suspect  that  Amer 
ica's  race  problem  would  speedily  resolve  itself  into 
infinitely  simpler  proportions. 

Through  the  medium  of  race  papers  and  magazines, 
the  pulpit,  industrial  and  political  gatherings  and 
associations,  the  mulatto  wields  a  tremendous  influence 
over  the  Negro.  It  is  here  that  his  importance  as  a 
factor  in  whatever  problems  may  rise  from  the  Negro's 
presence  in  this  country  becomes  manifest,  and  the 
working  out  of  such  problems  may  be  advanced  or 
retarded,  just  as  he  wisely  or  unwisely  plays  the  part 
which  fate  —  or  Providence  —  has  assigned  him.  The 
Negro,  like  the  white  man,  responds  more  readily  to 
bad  influences  than  to  good,  and  the  example  and 
precepts  of  a  hundred  men  like  Washington  may  be 
easily  counteracted  by  the  advice  and  influence  of 
men  of  whom  the  mulatto  type  unfortunately  furnishes 
too  many  examples.  Booker  Washington  may  in  all 
sincerity  preach  the  gospel  of  labour;  he  may  teach 
his  people,  as  a  fundamental  lesson,  the  cultivation 


434     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  the  friendship  and  esteem  of  the  white  man;  he  may 
point  out  the  truth  that  for  the  Negro  the  privilege 
of  earning  a  dollar  is  of  much  greater  importance  than 
that  of  spending  it  at  the  white  man's  theatre  or  hotel; 
yet  all  these  lessons  must  fail  of  their  fullest  and  best 
results  so  long  as  the  Negro's  mind  is  being  constantly 
poisoned  with  the  radical  teachings  and  destructive 
doctrines  of  the  mulatto  of  the  other  school. 

The  most  prominent  mulatto  editor  of  the  country 
is  credited  by  the  Washington  Post  with  having  de 
clared  that  he  was  "tired  hearing  about  good  niggers, 
that  what  he  wanted  was  to  see  bad  niggers,  with  guns 
in  their  hands."  One  of  the  leading  race  papers  in 
the  country,  published  at  the  national  capital,  in  enum 
erating  certain  things  which  it  would  like  to  see  occur, 
as  being  beneficial  to  the  Negro,  included  "the  death 
of  a  few  more  men  like  Charles  Dudley  Warner,"  and 
this  merely  because  that  good  man  and  true  friend  of 
the  Negro  had,  shortly  before  his  death,  reached  and 
expressed  conclusions  concerning  Negro  higher  educa 
tion  at  variance  with  opinions  he  had  formerly  enter 
tained.  With  Booker  Washington  crying  peace  from 
the  housetops,  and  the  most  widely  read  and  influential 
of  race  magazines  silently  furnishing  to  the  private 
precincts  of  the  home  and  chimney  corner  stories  re 
volving  around  themes  of  race  prejudice,  and  appealing 
to  passion  and  hate,  together  with  articles  which  would 
inculcate  lessons  dangerous  to  even  a  stronger  people, 
which  voice  is  in  the  end  likely  to  prove  more  potent 
in  its  influence  upon  this  childish  race? 


The  Mulatto  Factor  435 

In  1902  the  country  was  shocked  by  the  horrible 
affair  growing  out  of  the  murder  of  two  New  Orleans 
policemen  by  Robert  Charles  —  while  the  bloody 
affrays  in  Alabama  and  Georgia  in  which  the  Negroes 
Henderson  and  Brewer,  and  several  white  men,  lost 
their  lives  may  be  easily  recalled.  At  the  time  there 
appeared  in  the  most  prominent  coloured  magazine  in 
the  country  a  leading  article  demanding  continued 
race  agitation,  and  in  these  words  glorifying  these 
murderous  criminals  as  martyred  heroes,  worthy  of 
emulation:  "  We  have  produced  a  Bob  Brewer  in 
Georgia,  a  Robert  Charles  in  Louisana,  and  a  Will 
Henderson  in  Alabama,  and  we  have  hopes  of  having 
similar  exhibitions  of  courage  in  all  of  the  Southern 
states."  This  same  magazine  printed  a  biographical 
sketch  of  the  editor  whose  inflammatory  utterances 
have  been  quoted  above,  which,  in  speaking  of  his 
father,  used  this  language:  "Everybody  in  Jackson 
County  not  only  knew  that  he  was  a  dead  shot,  but 
that  he  would  shoot.  That  is  not  a  bad  reputation 
for  an  Afro-American  to  have  in  the  South  even  at 
this  time."  Such  utterances  might  be  indefinitely 
multiplied,  but  I  have  mentioned  enough  to  illustrate 
the  point  I  wish  to  emphasise  —  the  existence  of  a 
distinct  mulatto  factor  in  our  race  problem,  and  the 
fact  that,  while  in  some  quarters  its  influence  is  being 
directed  as  wisely  as  may  be  possible,  there  is  in  it 
a  large  and  powerful  element  that  is  wholly  bad. 

The  varied  tragedy  of  human  life  furnishes  few  more 
pathetic  spectacles  than  that  of  the  educated  mulatto 


436     The  American  Race  Problem 

who  is  honestly  seeking  the  welfare  of  a  race  with  which 
a  baleful  commingling  of  blood  has  inexorably  iden 
tified  him  —  who  is  striving  to  uplift  to  his  own  level 
a  people  between  whose  ideals  and  ambitions  and 
capabilities  and  his  own  a  great  gulf  has  been  fixed 
by  nature's  laws.  Frequently  inheriting  from  the  su 
perior  race  talents  and  aspirations  the  full  play  of 
which  is  denied  him  by  his  kinship  with  the  inferior 
-  through  no  fault  of  his  own  he  is  doomed  to  be  an 
anach*6nsrrr^in  American  political  and  social  life. 
A  generous  mind  should  not  too  sweepingly  condemn 
his  occasional  outbursts  of  bitterness,  but  rather  wonder 
that  they  are  not  more  frequent  than  they  are.  Just 
in  proportion  as  their  numbers  diminish  or  increase, 
and  their  great  influence  be  potential  for  good  or  for 
evil,  will  the  problem  of  the  future  become  the  problem 
of  the  colour  line.  But  that  of  the  present,  whatever  it 
may  be  adjudged  to  be,  is  still  the  problem  of  the  Negro. 
While  it  so  remains,  let  us  treat  it  as  such,  by  consider 
ing  it  in  its  simplest  terms;  and  in  seeking  the  real 
good  of  the  real  Negro  let  us  invoke  the  aid  of  the  best 
and  wisest  of  that  class  with  which  he  has  so  long  and 
to  so  little  purpose  been  confused. 

THE     MULATTO 

In  your  issue  of  June  27*  you  print  a  communication 


*  An  open  letter  to  the  'Outlook,  August  8,  1903.  The  appearance  of  the 
preceding  paper  created  considerable  discussion,  most  of  which  wholly  mis 
construed  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  the  writer.  This  open  letter  was  written 
in  the  hope  of  making  clear  the  real  intent  and  spirit  behind  the  article.  It  is 
reproduced  here  as  a  conclusion  to  a  very  elementary  discussion  of  what  this 
writer  believes  to  be  a  very  important  subject,  that  of  the  mulatto's  part  in  the 
race  problem. 


The  Mulatto  Factor  437 

from  the  Rev.  Thomas  Nelson  Baker  correcting  a  con 
struction  which  an  editorial  of  yours  had  placed  upon 
his  reference  to  my  article  on  the  mulatto.  I  have 
no  quarrel  with  Mr.  Baker's  comments  upon  my  utter 
ances,  and  have  no  desire  to  consume  your  space  and 
tax  the  patience  of  your  readers  by  indulging  in  an 
idle  controversy.  But  the  conclusion  indicated  in  this 
communication  demands,  it  seems  to  me,  some  reply. 

All  that  I  attempted  to  do  in  the  article  in  question  — • 
"The  Mulatto  Factor  in  the  Race  Problem" — was  to 
set  forth  briefly  certain  features  of  the  "problem" 
which  it  appears  to  me  to  be  unwise  to  ignore  in  our 
consideration  of  it.  At  most,  I  could  make  so  short  a 
discussion  merely  suggestive,  and  no  more  than  this 
was  contemplated  by  me. 

I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  those  who  take  issue 
with  me,  but  I  do  object  to  having  entirely  incorrect 
motives  ascribed  to  me,  and  false  conclusions  drawn 
from  my  words.  The  fact  that  this  has  been  done  by 
so  many  of  my  critics  —  to  say  nothing  of  one  or  two 
unintentionally  misleading  "interviews"  on  the  subject 
—  warrants  me  in  making  this  correction. 

My  position  is  simply  that,  in  its  mental  and  moral 
equipment,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  the  Negro  race  is 
the  inferior  of  the  white ;  that  most  of  the  men  who  have 
come  to  the  front  as  "  race  leaders, "  and  who  are  pointed 
to  as  the  highest  intellectual  types  of  the  race,  are, 
in  fact,  not  really  Negroes  —  under  any  exact  defini 
tion  of  the  word,  as  descriptive  of  a  race;  that  these 
mulattoes,  from  their  position  of  leadership,  wield  a 


438     The  American  Race  Problem 

large  influence  over  the  more  than  nine  millions  of 
our  population  classed  as  Negroes  —  and  that  it  be 
hooves  them  to  see  to  it  that  that  influence  should  be 
for  good  rather  than  for  evil. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  are  no  pure  Negroes 
who  have  risen  to  eminence  in  this  country,  and  I 
would  be  the  last  to  ignore  such  as  have.  I  speak, 
however,  of  the  masses  of  the  race  when  I  ascribe 
to  it  certain  characteristics,  just  as  I  refer  to  the  large 
body  of  "race  leaders"  when  I  speak  of  them  as  mulat- 
toes.  This  does  not  mean  to  say  that  there  are  not 
many  Negroes  who  have  risen  superior  to  the  character 
of  the  mass,  any  more  than  it  means  to  say  that  every 
man  is  fitted  for  high  station  in  the  race  just  because 
he  happens  to  be  a  mulatto. 

Mr.  Baker  speaks  of  the  "poor  thinking"  the  white 
man  is  capable  of  "when  dominated  by  prejudices  and 
preconceived  opinions."  It  is  this,  and  the  term 
"negrophobist,"  used  by  some  of  my  critics,  to  which 
I  take  exception.  The  people  of  this  country,  North 
and  South,  white  and  black,  have  misunderstood  and 
abused  each  other  long  enough  over  this  "race  question " 
to  have  learned  that  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  using 
harsh  terms  and  indulging  in  recrimination.  Neither 
section,  neither  race,  can  lay  claim  to  the  exclusive 
possession  of  all  the  wisdom  on  the  subject,  nor  justly 
charge  the  other  with  all  the  prejudice  and  ignorance. 
The  situation  demands  a  large  measure  of  sympathy 
and  charity  from  all  sides,  and  the  according  of  honest 
motives  to  honest  thought,  even  though  it  lead  to 


The  Mulatto  Factor  439 

conclusions  at  variance  with  one's  own.  He  who  can 
not  criticise  without  the  questioning  of  motive  —  who 
cannot  differ  without  indulging  in  reproach  or  abuse  — 
cannot  justly  claim  much  of  that  kindly  feeling  which 
should  characterise  any  discussion  of  the  race  question 
to  give  it  one  of  its  highest  elements  of  value. 


FIVE 

PAPERS  BY  WALTER  F.  WILLCOX 

I. — NEGRO  CRIMINALITY 
II. — CENSUS  STATISTICS  OF  THE  NEGRO 

III — THE   PROBABLE    INCREASE   OF  THE  NEGRO  RACE 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


I 

NEGRO  CRIMINALITY* 

THE  number  of  prisoners  in  the  United  States 
was  reported  at  the  last  census,  showing  those 
of  African  descent  and  those  of  pure  white  blood.  In 
the  Southern  states  there  were  six  white  prisoners  to 
every  ten  thousand  whites  and  twenty-nine  Negro 
prisoners  to  every  ten  thousand  Negroes,  f  This  seems 
to  indicate  that  the  liability  of  an  American  Negro  to 
commit  crime  is  several  times  as  great  as  the  liability 

*  An  address  delivered  before  the  American  Social  Science  Association  at 
Saratoga,  September  6,  1899,  preceded  in  its  printed  form  by  the  following 
note :  The  right  of  one  born  and  reared  almost  within  sight  of  Bunker  Hill  to 
speak  on  the  Negro  question  may  perhaps  be  challenged.  Yet  one  who  knows 
the  passions  aroused  by  the  Civil  War  only  through  hearsay,  and  the  Negroes 
mainly  through  type  and  as  a  college  teacher,  gains  a  remoteness  and  per 
spective  that  should  help  him  to  be  fair-minded,  clear-sighted  and  outspoken. 
In  some  quarters,  too,  a  Northern  student  may  get  credit  for  these  qualities 
more  easily  than  a  Southerner  or  a  man  of  affairs,  and  contribute  his  mite  to  the 
formation  of  public  opinion. 

In  preparing  my  manuscript  for  the  printer,  I  have  made  full  citation  of 
authorities,  being  willing  to  risk  the  appearance  of  pedantry,  if  thereby  I  might 
aid  anyone  to  find  the  main  sources  of  my  information.  I  have  been  greatly 
aided  by  correspondents,  especially  in  the  South,  all  of  whom  have  answered  the 
inquiries  of  a  stranger  with  the  utmost  courtesy;  and  I  gladly  take  this  oppor 
tunity  to  express  my  grateful  thanks  to  Mr.  Leroy  Daniel,  Dr.  W.  E.  B.  DuBois, 
Mrs.  T.  M.  Greene,  Dr.  George  H.  Hepworth,  Ex-Governor  W.  J.  Northen, 
Mayor  G.  L.  Simpson,  and  Booker  T.  Washington. 

This  address  was  delivered  before  the  results  of  the  Census  of  1900  and  of  the 
enumeration  of  Prisoners  and  Juvenile  Delinquents  taken  in  1904  were  avail 
able  and  no  changes  in  its  text  have  been  made  for  the  present  volume.  Some 
indication  of  the  manner  in  which  the  argument  might  be  modified  by  a  consid 
eration  of  later  figures  will  be  found  in  an  article  in  the  forthcoming  issue  of  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  on  "Negroes  in  the  United  States." 

t  Eleventh  Census,  "Crime,  Pauperism,  and  Benevolence,"  I.,  p.  125  and 
II.,  P.3. 

443 


444     The  American  Race  Problem 

of  a  white.  But  those  who  are  unwilling  to  admit  this 
inference  sometimes  urge  that  the  judicial  system  of 
the  South  is  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  whites, 
and  that  it  is  not  administered  with  impartiality  to  the 
two  races.  They  claim  that  a  Negro  is  convicted,  on 
the  average,  upon  less  evidence  than  is  required  to  con 
vict  a  member  of  the  dominant  race;  that,  if  found 
guilty,  he  is  less  likely  to  escape  prison  by  paying  a  fine; 
and  that,  if  both  are  imprisoned,  the  Negro  is  likely  to 
receive  a  longer  sentence  for  a  like  offense.  To  meet 
these  objections  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  person 
raising  them  would  probably  be  difficult  or  impossible, 
and  so,  for  the  sake  of  my  argument,  let  me  for  the 
moment  admit  their  validity.  If  one  thinks  they 
furnish  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  large  number 
of  Negro  prisoners  in  the  South,  he  may  be  asked  whether 
they  lie  also  in  the  North.  Does  it  take  less  evidence 
to  convict  a  Negro  here,  or  is  a  Negro's  sentence  for  the 
same  offense  likely  to  be  longer?  Such  a  claim  has 
never  to  my  knowledge  been  raised.  Yet  in  the 
Northern  states,  in  1890,  there  were  twelve  white 
prisoners  to  every  ten  thousand  whites,  and  sixty-nine 
Negro  prisoners  to  every  ten  thousand  Negroes.  In 
our  own  state  of  New  York  the  Negroes,  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers,  contributed  over  five  times  as  many 
as  the  whites  to  the  prison  population.  These  facts 
furnish  some  statistical  basis  and  warrant  for  the  popular 
opinion,  never  seriously  contested,  that  under  present 
conditions  in  this  country  a  member  of  the  African  race, 
other  things  equal,  is  much  more  likely  to  fall  into 


Negro  Criminality  445 

crime  than  a  member  of  the  white  race.  This  is  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  the  Southern  whites,  and  is  con 
ceded  by  representative  Negroes.  Thus,  among  the 
resolutions  adopted  by  the  Negro  Conference  at  Hamp 
ton,  Va.,  in  July,  1898,  was  the  admission  that  "the 
criminal  record  of  the  coloured  race  in  all  parts  of  the 
country  is  alarming  in  its  proportions."* 

The  Negro  prisoners  in  the  Southern  states  to  ten 
thousand  Negroes  increased  between  1880  and  1890 
29  per  cent.,  while  the  white  prisoners  to  ten  thousand 
whites  increased  only  8  per  cent.f  Here,  again,  to  the 
obvious  inference  that  crime  is  increasing  among  the 
Negroes  much  faster  than  among  the  whites,  the  same 
objection  is  sometimes  raised,  namely,  that  prejudice 
against  that  race  is  so  influential  in  the  South  as  to 
invalidate  the  argument.  The  same  appeal  as  before 
to  the  figures  for  the  North  and  West  constitutes  a 
convincing  reply  to  any  such  contention.  In  the  states 
where  slavery  was  never  established,  the  white  prisoners 
increased  7  per  cent,  faster  than  the  white  popula 
tion,  while  the  Negro  prisoners  increased  no  less  than 
39  per  cent,  faster  than  the  Negro  population.  Thus 
the  increase  of  Negro  criminality,  so  far  as  it  is  reflected 
in  the  number  of  prisoners,  exceeded  the  increase  of 
white  criminality  more  in  the  North  than  it  did  in  the 
South.  To  bring  the  facts  home,  I  may  add  that  for 
New  York  State  in  1880  there  were  sixteen  white  pris 
oners  to  every  ten  thousand  white  population;  and  in 

*  Hampton  Negro  Conference.  No.  2,  p.  n. 

t  Compare  preceding  citation  from  the  Eleventh  Census  with  the  Tenth  Census. 
XXL,  p.  479- 


446     The  American  Race  Problem 

1890  the  proportion  has  risen  to  eighteen.  But  the 
Negro  prisoners  of  the  state  in  1880  were  seventy-seven, 
and  in  1890  one  hundred  to  every  ten  thousand  Negroes. 
These  figures  serve  to  show  both  the  higher  rate  and 
the  more  rapid  increase  of  Negro  criminality,  and  in 
both  respects  New  York  is  a  fair  type  of  the  conditions 
elsewhere  in  the  country.  In  these  figures  one  finds 
again  some  statistical  basis  for  the  well-nigh  universal 
opinion  that  crime  among  the  American  Negroes  is 
increasing  with  alarming  rapidity.*  In  further  support 
of  this  conclusion,  I  may  quote  the  concession  of  the 
Negro  who  is  perhaps  doing  as  much  as  any  member 
of  his  race  to  throw  light  upon  its  present  condition. 
Professor  DuBois,  of  Atlanta  University,  in  a  recent 
address  before  the  Negro  Academy,  said:  "The  Negro 
Academy  ought  to  sound  a  note  of  warning  that  would 
echo  in  every  black  cabin  in  the  land.  Unless  we 
conquer  our  present  vices,  they  will  conquer  us.  We 
are  diseased,  we  are  developing  criminal  tendencies, 
and  an  alarmingly  large  percentage  of  our  men  and 
women  are  sexually  impure,  "f 

Let  us  grant,  then,  that  there  is  a  large  amount  and 

*  The  serious  difficulties  in  the  way  of  comparing  the  criminal  tendencies  of 
different  classes  by  inferences  drawn  from  the  statistics  of  prisoners  are  ably 
stated  by  R.  P.  Falkner,  "Crime  and  the  Census"  (in  "Annals  American  Aca 
demy,"  January,  1897).  I  do  not  believe  that  his  objections  vitiate  my  inferences 
in  the  guarded  way  in  which  they  have  been  stated.  While  the  statistics  of 
prisoners  in  one  way  which  he  has  pointed  out  exaggerate  the  criminal  tendencies 
of  Negroes,  yet  a  comparison  between  the  prisoners  and  persons  of  all  ages 
tends  to  understate  the  true  criminality  of  a  race,  a  disproportionate  number 
of  which  are  children,  and  so  under  the  criminal  age.  These  two  obstacles  to 
accuracy  in  quantitative  statements  of  the  amount  or  increase  of  crime  thus 
tend  to  neutralise  each  other. 

t  W.  E.  B.  DuBois,  "The  Conservation  of  Races,"  p.  14  (in  American  Negro 
Academy,  Occasional  Papers,  No.  2). 


Negro  Criminality  447 

a  rapid  increase  of  Negro  crime  in  the  United  States. 
This  gives  rise  to  a  serious  practical  problem  —  How 
may  this  amount  be  reduced  or  at  least  the  increase 
checked?  The  answer  to  that  largely  depends  upon 
the  answer  to  a  more  theoretical  question,  which  will 
define  my  theme  this  morning  —  What  are  the  causes 
of  Negro  crime?  If  those  causes  can  be  detected  and 
removed  or  counteracting  causes  set  at  work,  the 
practical  problem  will  have  been  advanced  toward 
solution. 

The  criminal  is  one  who  refuses  to  obey  the  laws 
of  the  community  in  which  he  lives.  Such  obedience 
to  the  law  in  the  face  of  temptation  is  not  an  instinct 
or  birthright,  but  a  product  of  training,  and  in  the 
great  majority  of  instances  that  training  is  obtained 
in  the  family.  The  primary  cause  of  crime,  therefore, 
is  defective  family  life  and  training.  Hence  crime  is 
most  common  during  the  years  just  after  a  child  has 
passed  out  of  the  control  of  the  family,  and  while  he  is 
finding  himself  ill-adapted  by  his  past  training  to  the 
new  sphere  of  life.  In  proportion  to  population  of 
the  same  age,  the  prisoners  between  twenty  and  thirty 
are  much  more  numerous  than  those  of  any  earlier  or 
later  age  period;*  and,  if  the  date  of  committing  the 
first  crime  could  be  ascertained  —  and  that  is  the 
important  time  —  the  juvenile  character  of  our  criminal 
population  would  appear  yet  more  clearly.  This  youth- 
fulness  in  comparison  with  the  population  outside  is 
characteristic  of  all  classes  of  prisoners,  but  preemi- 

*  Eleventh  Census,  "Crime,  Pauperism,  and  Benevolence,"  I.,  p.  163 


448     The  American  Race  Problem 

nently  of  the  Negroes*  —  a  fact  which  tends  in  a  measure 
to  confirm  the  frequent  statement  that  Negro  criminals 
spring  especially  from  the  rising  generation.  If  that 
be  so,  a  further  increase  of  Negro  criminality  in  the 
future  is  probable,  and  this  probability  renders  the 
situation  still  more  serious. 

Under  the  slavery  regime  the  Negro  had  a  feeble 
family  life,  much  of  the  responsibility  for  the  proper 
rearing  of  the  family  falling  upon  the  master.  The 
emancipated  slaves  have  not  been  able  in  a  single 
generation  of  freedom  to  develop  or  to  imitate  that 
family  life  which  it  has  cost  the  whites  many  centuries 
to  acquire.  The  difficulty  is  the  more  serious  because 
to-day  the  conditions  of  civilised  life  do  not  foster  the 
family  virtues  as  they  have  done  in  the  past.  The 
white  race  is  living  on  its  inherited  capital  of  family 
organisation  and  responsibilities;  the  Negroes  have  no 
such  capital,  but  must  acquire  it,  and  that  speedily, 
if  the  race  is  to  survive. 

What  is  the  most  effective  safeguard  against  crime 
that  the  family  furnishes  the  son  or  daughter?  Not 
education,  not  even  direct  moral  or  religious  training. 
The  Negro  and  the  injudicious  among  his  friends  too 
often  look  on  education  and  religion  as  fetiches,  that 
is,  something  external,  the  possession  of  which  guar 
antees  the  possessor  a  charmed  and  happy  life  here  or 
hereafter.  In  distinction  from  these,  the  most  effective 
safeguard  against  crime  which  parents  can  offer  to  their 
children  is  the  desire  and  ability  to  support  one's  self 

*  Idem,  I.,  p.  167. 


Negro  Criminality  449 

by  legitimate  industry.  A  formal  education  is  sub 
sidiary  to  this;  it  is  important  mainly  because  it  in 
creases  the  avenues  through  which  self-support  is 
possible.  If  ever  it  serves  to  decrease  the  desire  for 
self-support,  it  is  to  that  extent  baneful.  If  ever  it 
decreases  the  recognised  avenues  for  self-support  by 
arousing  the  belief  that  certain  lines  of  legitimate 
industry  are  degrading  and  therefore  inadmissible, 
it  is  to  that  extent  baneful.  This  may  give  a  stand 
point  from  which  to  judge  the  difficult  question  of 
Negro  education.  If  the  Negro  family  on  the  average 
is  far  less  effective  than  the  white,  the  education  pro 
vided  for  Negro  children  should  aim  frankly  to  supple 
ment  the  shortcomings  of  their  family  life  and  reduce 
their  temptations  to  crime  by  increasing  their  desire 
and  ability  to  live  by  legitimate  industry.  Probably 
the  best  means  by  which  to  reach  and  reenforce  the 
family  life  of  the  Negroes  is  a  school  system  which 
frankly  sets  this  up  as  its  aim. 

A  closely  related  series  of  causes  for  Negro  crime 
may  be  grouped  as  industrial.  Under  the  compulsory 
cooperation  of  slavery,  little  competition  between  the 
two  races  was  possible.  Manual  labour  in  many  pur 
suits,  notably  those  of  agriculture,  was  deemed  by  the 
whites  servile  and  degrading.  Since  the  war  this 
motive  for  the  white  man  to  avoid  field-work  or  other 
forms  of  manual  labour  has  diminished  in  importance, 
and  he  has  gradually  entered  upon  tasks  which  before 
the  war  were  closed  to  him  by  the  pressure  of  social 
sentiment.  In  ceasing  to  be  master  he  has  become 


450     The  American  Race  Problem 

competitor,  and  to  the  pressure  of  this  competition 
not  a  little  Negro  crime  must  be  attributed. 

Hence  it  is  no  digression  to  invite  your  attention 
to  some  evidence  of  the  increasing  competition 
between  the  two  races.  The  staple  crops  upon  which 
the  Negroes  were  occupied  before  the  war  were 
probably  cotton,  tobacco,  sugar,  and  rice.  In  1860 
the  great  mass  of  the  work  in  the  cotton  fields  was  done 
by  Negro  labour.  White  labour  was  used,  to  be  sure,  in 
Texas,  but  at  that  time  the  whole  cotton  crop  of  Texas 
was  less  than  one-twelfth  of  the  country's  product.* 
It  would  probably  be  a  conservative  statement  to  say 
that  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  cotton  was  then  grown 
by  the  Negroes.  The  only  official  estimate  for  any 
date  since  that  time  is  that  of  the  statistician  to  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  in  1876.!  He  concluded 
that  about  three-fifths  of  our  cotton  was  raised  in  that 
year  by  Negroes.  At  the  present  time  probably  not 
one-half  is  thus  grown.  In  1859  Texas  produced  one- 
twelfth,  in  1897-98  one  fourth,  {  of  the  cotton  of  the 
United  States;  and,  as  in  that  state  white  labour  is 
usually  employed  in  the  cotton  fields,  the  advance  of 
Texas  means  the  advance  of  white  agricultural  labour. 

Similar  changes  have  been  going  on  in  the  tobacco 
crop.  In  1859,  28  per  cent,  of  it  was  grown  in  Virginia 
and  mainly,  it  seems,  by  Negro  labour.  In  1899  less  than 
10  per  cent,  of  our  crop  was  grown  in  that  state,  and  the 
Virginia  crop  of  that  year  was  less  than  two-fifths  of 

*  Eleventh  Census,  Abstract,  pp.  122-125. 

t  Department  of  Agriculture,  Report,  1876,  p.  136. 

J  Department  of  Agriculture,  Year  Book,  1898,  p.  683. 


Negro  Criminality  451 

what  it  had  been  thirty  years  before.  In  1889  Ken 
tucky  produced  over  45  per  cent,  of  the  tobacco  of  the 
country,  while  ten  years  earlier  it  produced  only  36  per 
cent.  American  tobacco  growing  evidently  is  tending 
to  centre  in  Kentucky,  and  yet  it  is  the  only  Southern 
state  in  which  the  number  of  Negroes  decreased  during 
the  last  decade.  In  over  half  its  counties  and  in  the 
state  as  a  whole,  the  Negro  population  decreased  while 
the  white  increased  between  1880  and  1890.*  It  seems 
that  tobacco  growing,  like  cotton  growing,  is  passing 
more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  the  whites.  Some 
light  upon  this  change  may  be  derived  from  a  passage 
in  the  last  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  Agricul 
ture:  "The  tobacco  business  has  become  very  highly 
specialized.  Each  market  has  its  own  requirements, 
each  class  of  users  has  its  own  particular  style,  and  each 
season  brings  some  change  of  style  which  must  be  met 
by  the  tobacco  grower.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  compe 
tition  in  our  own  country,  and  very  serious  competition 
from  abroad.  ...  To  meet  this  competition,  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  that  our  farmers  should  have 
at  their  disposal  a  thorough  knowledge  of  their  own 
conditions,  and  of  the  conditions  of  the  soil,  climate, 
methods,  and  labour  conditions  of  competing  districts,  "f 
Of  the  cane  sugar  crop  of  the  United  States  in  1889, 
over  97  per  cent,  came  from  Louisiana;  and  the  increase 
of  yield  in  the  preceding  decade  was  almost  confined  to 
that  state,  where  the  acreage  under  cane  increased  7 

*  Eleventh  Census,  Abstract,  p.  40,  and  Population,  I.,  412,  ff. 
t  Department  of  Agriculture,  Year  Book,  1898,  p.  42,  ff. 


452     The  American  Race  Problem 

per  cent,  and  the  yield  42  per  cent.*  Apparently,  the 
increase  of  yield  in  the  last  ten  years,  notwithstanding 
the  losses  resulting  from  recent  Federal  legislation,  has 
been  quite  as  rapid.  In  a  paper  read  in  1898  before  the 
Louisiana  Agricultural  Society  the  statement  was  made 
that  this  rapid  increase  in  the  production  of  cane  sugar 
was  "  due  especially  to  the  establishment  of  large  central 
factories,  "f  The  machinery  in  these  factories  is  man 
aged,  I  am  informed,  almost  entirely  by  white  men. 

With  regard  to  the  rice  crop  of  the  country,  in  1879, 
less  than  one-fourth  of  the  acreage  was  in  Louisiana ;  in 
1889  over  one-half  was  there.  J  During  the  last  decade 
the  acreage  outside  Louisiana  decreased  42  per 
cent.,  while  that  within  the  State  more  than  doubled. 
In  this,  as  in  other  staple  agricultural  industries,  there 
has  been  a  marked  tendency  toward  concentration; 
and  the  centre  of  production  has  passed  away  from 
South  Carolina,  which  in  1849  produced  three-fourths 
of  our  crop,  but  in  1889  less  than  one-fourth.  This 
transfer  of  the  rice  growing  industry  is  largely  due  to 
the  superior  efficiency  of  white  labour.  A  pamphlet  dis 
tributed  at  the  Louisiana  Building  during  the  World's 
Fair  in  1893  and  thus  given  apparently  official  indorse 
ment,  says:  "Not  long  since  the  Carolinas  raised  the 
rice  of  the  United  States,  and  the  delta  of  the  Mississippi 
the  rice  of  Louisiana,  all  done  by  coloured  labour.  The 
immigration  agent  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad 

*  Eleventh  Census,  Abstract,  pp.  126-128. 

t  State    Agricultural    Society.     Proceedings,    Twelfth    Session,    p.    117    (in 
Louisiana  Commissioner  of  Agriculture,  Biennial  Report,  1898). 
t  Eleventh  Census,  Abstract,  pp.  130-133. 


Negro  Criminality  453 

Company  induced  the  men  of  the  Northwest  to  come 
into  southwestern  Louisiana,  bringing  their  improved 
farm  machinery.  They  supplanted  the  hook  and  sickle 
then  in  use  by  twine-binding  harvesters,  of  which  many 
hundred  are  now  employed  in  the  Louisiana  rice  fields; 
and  this  machinery  is  handled  by  white  men."*  Cor 
roborative  evidence  is  found  in  a  recent  paper  read 
before  the  Louisiana  Agricultural  Society,  which  states 
that  there  are  now  in  the  rice  fields  of  Louisiana  nearly 
five  thousand  selfbinding  harvesters  with  steam  threshers 
by  the  hundred,  and  that  artificial  irrigation  employing 
steam  pumps  has  been  introduced  on  a  large  scale. f 

From  all  the  evidence  obtainable  it  seems  clear  that 
Southern  agriculture  is  becoming  increasingly  diversi 
fied,  and  is  demanding  and  receiving  a  constantly 
increasing  amount  of  industry,  energy  and  intelligence  — 
characteristics  which  the  whites  more  generally  possess 
or  more  readily  develop. 

Some  evidence  upon  the  lack  of  industry  of  Negro 
farmers  in  the  black  belt  of  Alabama  may  be  derived 
from  a  recent  Bulletin  of  the  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture  dealing  with  their  food.  Eighteen  fam 
ilies  near  Tuskegee,  Alabama,  were  selected  as  typical 
and  studied  by  officials  of  the  department  in  coopera 
tion  with  representatives  of  the  Tuskegee  Normal 
Institute.  The  agent  of  the  Department  reported: 
"The  Negro  farmer  generally  works  about  seven  and  a 
half  months  during  the  year.  .  .  .  The  rest  of  the 

*  Southwest  Louisiana  on  the  Line  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Company,  pp.  45,  ff. 
t  State  Agricultural  Society.     Proceedings,  Twelfth  Session,  p.  39  (in  Louisi 
ana  Commissioner  of  Agriculture,  Biennial  Report,  1898). 


454     The  American  Race  Problem 

time  is  devoted  to  visiting,  social  life,  revivals,  or  other 
religious  exercises,  and  to  absolute  idleness.  Few  farmers 
work  on  Saturday  even  during  the  busy  season  of 
cotton-picking. ' '  * 

The  same  study  gives  evidence  of  the  poor  food  supply 
of  the  Negro  farmers.  In  the  diet  of  the  average  Negro 
family  the  amount  of  protein — that  is,  of  the  material 
needed  to  form  blood,  muscle  and  bone,  and  to  make  up 
for  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  bodily  machine — was  from 
one-third  to  three-fourths  that  which  has  been  found  in 
the  diet  of  well-fed  American  whites,  and  "no  larger 
than  has  been  found  in  the  diet  of  the  very  poor  factory 
operatives  and  labourers  in  Germany  and  the  labourers 
and  beggars  in  Italy. "f 

In  agricultural  pursuits  the  competition  between 
whites  and  blacks  can  be  traced  more  clearly  than  else 
where,  because  in  that  field  we  have  fuller  information. 
Still  there  is  some  evidence,  derived  mainly  from  state 
ments  of  educated  Negroes,  that  in  other  occupations, 
also,  this  competition  is  seriously  felt. 

Thus  Professor  Hugh  M.  Browne,  of  Washington, 
said,  in  a  speech, delivered  in  1894,  to  a  Negro  audience: 
"White  men  are  bringing  science  and  art  into  menial 
occupations  and  lifting  them  beyond  our  reach.  In  my 
boyhood  the  household  servants  were  coloured,  but  now 
in  the  establishments  of  the  four  hundred  one  finds 
trained  white  servants.  Then  the  walls  and  ceilings 
were  whitewashed  each  spring  by  coloured  men;  now 

*  Department  of  Agriculture,   Office  of  Experiment  Stations,    Bulletin   38. 
"Dietary  Studies  with  Reference  to  the  Food  of  the  Negro  in  Alabama,"   p.  18. 
t  Idem,  p.  68. 


Negro  Criminality  455 

they  are  decorated  by  skilled  white  artisans.  Then  the 
carpets  were  beaten  by  coloured  men;  now  this  is  done 
by  a  white  man,  managing  a  steam  carpet-cleaning 
works.  Then  laundry  work  was  done  by  Negroes ;  now 
they  are  with  difficulty  able  to  manage  the  new  labour- 
saving  machinery."* 

Similar  testimony  comes  from  another  Negro,  Mr. 
Fortune,  editor  of  an  influential  Negro  paper.  He  said 
in  1897:  "When  I  left  Florida  for  Washington  twenty 
years  ago,  every  brakeman,  every  engineer  and  almost 
every  man  working  on  the  railroad  was  a  black  man. 
To-day  a  black  man  can  hardly  get  a  job  at  any  avoca 
tion.  This  is  because  the  fathers  did  not  educate  their 
children  along  the  lines  in  which  they  were  working, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  the  race  is  losing  its  grip  on  the 
industries  that  are  the  bone  and  sinew  of  life."f  At  the 
same  conference  Mr.  Fitch,  the  field  missionary  of 
Hampton  Normal  Institute,  reported  that  he  found 
the  old  men  everywhere  working  at  the  trades  they 
learned  in  slavery,  but  nowhere  did  he  find  young  men 
learning  these  trades.  J  Similarly,  Principal  Frissell, 
in  the  opening  address,  said:  "There  is  great  danger 
that  the  coloured  people  will  be  pushed  out  of  the  occu 
pations  that  were  once  theirs,  because  white  tradesmen 
are  coming  to  fill  their  places.  "^[  This  competition 
between  the  races  is  accentuated  by  the  trade-union 
policy  of  exclusion,  which  often  denies  Negroes  the 

*  Reported  in  A.  M.  E.  Zion  Church  Quarterly  for  April,  1894. 

t  Southern  Workman  and  Hampton  School  Record,  September,  1897,  p.  179. 

J  Idem,  p.  1 68. 

U  Idem,  p.  167 


456     The  American  Race  Problem 

right  of  membership  in  labour  organisations,  and  then 
opposes  the  employment  of  non-unionists,  the  net  result 
of  which  is  to  antagonise  the  entry  or  continuance  of 
Negroes  in  the  field  of  skilled  labour.* 

Every  improvement  in  agriculture  or  industry  any 
where  tending  to  lower  the  price  of  a  staple  product  is 
a  spur  to  former  producers.  They  must  meet  the  situa 
tion  by  economies  of  production  or  economies  of  con 
sumption,  by  improving  their  own  methods  or  by  living 
on  a  smaller  return.  Those  who  are  sanguine  of  the 
future  of  the  Negro  in  the  United  States  usually  rest 
their  hopes  upon  the  evidence  of  Negro  progress  since 
emancipation,  measured  against  some  assumed  absolute 
standard.  They  point  to  a  decreasing  illiteracy,  to 
accumulations  of. property,  to  a  decreasing  death  rate, 
etc.  But  the  test  which  the  race  has  to  face  is  the  test 
of  relative  efficiency.  If  they  are  to  hold  their  own  in 
this  country,  they  must  improve  as  fast  as  the  whites, 
and  the  progress  of  the  Southern  whites  since  emerging 
from  the  dark  shadows  of  slavery,  the  war  and  Recon 
struction  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  present  history. 


*  The  preliminary  report  of  the  Third  Hampton  Conference  offers  confirma 
tory  evidence  on  this  point.  The  Committee  on  Business  and  Labour 
reported  on  the  condition  of  Negro  skilled  labour  in  certain  large  cities. 
Of  Richmond,  Va.,  they  say:  "Perhaps  two  thousand  are  employed  in  the 
iron  works.  This  branch  of  business  was  at  one  time  controlled  almost 
entirely  by  coloured  men,  but  now  they  are  employed  chiefly  as  common 
labourers,  with  only  here  and  there  a  master  mechanic."  The  general 
trend  of  the  report  is  summed  up  as  follows:  "The  trade-unions  along 
the  border  line  of  slavery  have  generally  pursued  a  policy  of  exclusiveness  on 
account  of  colour,  and  refused  to  include  the  coloured  craftsmen  in  their  scheme 
of  organisation.  ...  In  the  North  coloured  men,  when  competent,  are 
generally  received  into  local  unions  and  treated  fairly.  In  the  South  they 
work  side  by  side,  when  not  organised.  When  organisation  takes  place,  the 
coloured  workman  as  a  rule  is  excluded." — Southern  Workman,  September 
1899,  pp.  333,  ff.  Meagre  evidence  from  other  sources  does  not  confirm  the 
above  statement  so  far  as  it  applies  to  the  attitude  of  Northern  trade-unions. 


Negro  Criminality  457 

Partly  under  the  stress  of  this  competition  to  which 
the  Negroes  are  being  subjected,  partly  as  a  natural  re 
sult  of  their  emancipation,  they  are  gradually  drawing 
apart  into  social  classes.  The  successful  families  refuse 
to  associate  with  those  who  morally  and  industrially 
are  stationary  or  retrogressive.  Dr.  DuBois  has 
recently  made  a  valuable  report  on  the  members  of  his 
race  living  at  a  small  county  seat  in  the  Virginia  tobacco 
district.  About  260  Negro  families  were  studied,  of 
which  40  belonged  to  the  higher  class,  170  to  the  middle, 
and  perhaps  50  to  the  lower.  He  describes  the  members 
of  the  lower  class  as  "below  the  line  of  ordinary  respect 
ability,  living  in  loose  sexual  relationship,  responsible 
for  most  of  the  illegitimate  children,  and  furnishing  a 
half-dozen  street  walkers  and  numerous  gamblers  and 
rowdies.  They  are  not  particularly  vicious  and  quarrel 
some,  but  rather  shiftless  and  debauched.  Laziness 
and  promiscuous  sexual  intercourse  are  their  besetting 
sins."*  In  other  words,  this  class  lacks  the  family 
virtues  and  the  industrial  virtues  which  have  made  the 
white  man  what  he  is.  It  may  be  styled  potentially 
criminal.  A  class  of  such  people  is  found,  to  be  sure,  in 
every  civilised  country,  but  in  our  Southern  states  the 
proportion  of  this  potentially  criminal  class  is  abnor 
mally  and  dangerously  large.  About  one-fifth  of  the 
Negro  families  or  over  one-tenth  of  the  total  population 
in  Farmville  are  assigned  by  Professor  DuBois  to  this 
group.  This  growing  social  stratification  of  the  Negroes 


*"The  Negroes  of  Farmville,  Va.."  p.  37  (in  Department  of  Labour  Bulletin, 
January,  1898). 


458     The  American  Race  Problem 

makes  all  efforts  to  judge  them  as  a  race  rather  than  by 
classes,  localities,  or  even  individuals,  increasingly  un 
just  and  irritating  to  them. 

The  strenuous  and  increasing  industrial  competition 
between  the  two  races  often  results  in  local  displacement 
of  coloured  labor.  The  Negro  cotton  grower,  unable  to 
live  on  the  decreasing  return  from  his  land,  gives  place  to 
another  tenant,  white  or  black,  and  the  former  family 
drifts  away.  The  current  of  Negroes  to  the  cities  is  some 
what  greater  than  that  of  whites  and  seems  to  consist  of 
two  classes,  those  who  have  earned  a  promotion  to  city 
life  by  their  success  in  the  country  or  small  town,  and 
those  who  have  failed  in  country  life  and  flow  cityward 
to  live  on  their  neighbours  or  by  their  wits.  Neighbours 
and  pickings  are  more  numerous  in  an  urban  community. 
This  Negro  driftwood  is  likely  to  feel  sore  toward  the 
whites.  The  latter  are  held  responsible  for  the  organi 
sation  of  society,  and  their  fault  it  is  if  the  Negro  can 
find  in  it  no  place  for  himself.  They  cared  for  him  in 
slavery,  and  either  their  old  masters  or  their  new  eman 
cipators  are  bound  to  furnish  him  a  chance  for  a  liveli 
hood.  He  is  a  voiceless  Socialist.  Hence  this  driftwood 
belongs  to  the  potentially  criminal  class. 

A  third  group  of  causes  leading  to  a  large  amount  and 
rapid  increase  of  Negro  crime  may  be  embraced  under 
the  loose  term  race  friction.  All  witnesses  agree  that 
since  emancipation  the  two  races  have  separated  more 
and  more  in  life  and  thought.  Ex-Governor  Northen, 
in  an  address  at  Boston  in  1899,  seems  to  attribute  this  to 
the  national  policy  toward  the  South  during  the  Recon- 


Negro  Criminality  459 

struction  period.*  We  may  agree  with  him  in  part  and 
still  believe,  as  I  do,  that  the  industrial  competition  just 
sketched  was  probably  inevitable,  and  is  another  im 
portant  factor  in  drawing  the  races  apart.  But,  what 
ever  be  the  explanation,  the  fact  is  undeniable.  Under 
the  slavery  system  the  main  motives  in  governing  the 
Negroes  were  personal  loyalty  and  force,  and  the  em 
phasis  upon  one  or  the  other  varied  with  the  character  of 
the  work  and  of  the  owner  or  overseer.  As  the  races  have 
drawn  apart,  this  feeling  of  personal  loyalty  has  become 
feeble,  and  many  of  the  whites  have  felt  that  the  only 
alternative  mode  of  governing  the  increasing  number  of 
criminals  was  force,  and  that  the  more  speedily  and  surely 
force  could  be  applied  the  greater  its  deterrent  influence. 
But,  as  the  Negroes  have  separated  from  the  whites, 
they  have  drawn  or  been  crowded  together,  and  have 
come  to  feel  a  race  unity  and  race  pride,  and  are  develop 
ing  a  race  public  opinion  which  may  prove  of  great 
importance  in  controlling  the  Negro  criminal  class.  The 
existence  of  this  Negro  public  opinion,  as  distinct  from 
that  of  the  whites,  is  hardly  recognised  with  sufficient 
clearness  by  the  dominant  race,  and  to  illustrate  it  the 
argument  must  be  amplified.  This  can  best  be  done  by 
the  aid  of  a  typical  instance,  and  I  have  selected  for  the 
purpose  the  series -of  events  at  Palmetto,  Ga.,  in  the 
first  four  months  of  1899,  culminating  in  the  death  of 
Sam  Hose.f 

*"The  Negro  at  the  South,"  W.  J.  Northen,  p.  7. 

t  My  information  has  been  gleaned  from  a  file  of  the  Atlanta  Daily  Consti 
tution,  the  only  Atlanta  daily  paper  of  which  the  current  issues  are  accessible 
in  the  Library  of  Congress,  and  from  correspondents  both  white  and  coloured, 
in  the  North  and  in  the  South. 


460     The  American  Race  Problem 

Palmetto  is  a  town  of  perhaps  six  hundred  people  in 
a  county  which  contains  no  place  of  much  greater  size. 
About  two-thirds  of  the  county's  population  are  Negro. 
In  the  early  morning  of  Tuesday,  January  24,  1899,  a 
fire  broke  out  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  destroying  the 
hotel,  two  stores  and  a  storehouse,  and  seriously  threat 
ening  half  the  town.  Some  citizens  moved  out  their 
goods,  through  fear  that  the  fire  would  spread,  and  in 
this  way  they,  too,  suffered  losses.  There  was  little 
insurance  on  the  property  destroyed,  and  the  contem 
porary  newspaper  account  *  throws  no  light  upon  the 
place  of  origin  or  the  cause  of  the  fire.  On  the  following 
Saturday  morning,  not  long  after  midnight,  a  second  fire 
occurred,  by  which  twelve  property-holders  suffered 
serious  losses.  These  fires  together  destroyed  nearly  all 
of  the  two  business  blocks  in  the  town.  The  second  was 
clearly  incendiary,  for  in  another  block  a  fire  was  found 
the  same  night  kindled  against  the  outside  of  a  store. 
The  Atlanta  Constitution  of  March  i  yth  says')*  that  two 
other  fires  occurred  in  the  same  town  during  February, 
but  I  have  found  no  contemporary  mention  of  them  in 
the  columns  of  that  journal,  and  am  uncertain  whether 
the  statement  is  correct.  A  reward  was  offered  for  the 
detection  of  the  incendiaries,  but  for  some  weeks  all 
efforts  to  ferret  them  out  were  fruitless. 

About  the  middle  of  March  evidence  was  obtained 
implicating  nine  Negroes.  An  editor  of  an  Atlanta  daily 
paper,  who  made  a  special  investigation  of  the  facts 


*  Atlanta  Constitution,  Jan.  25,  1899,  p.  3,  col.  5., 
t  Idem,  Jan.  29,  1899,  p.  4,  col.  4. 


Negro  Criminality  461 

after  the  terrible  climax,  has  written  me  that  the  evi 
dence  against  the  Negroes  consisted  in  a  conversation 
overheard  by  a  reputable  white  citizen  while  in  hiding 
under  the  house  of  a  Negro,  and  in  a  confession  of  the 
ringleader.  The  Negroes  were  arrested,  placed  under  a 
guard  of  six  white  men,  and  confined  for  the  night  of 
March  i5th  in  a  warehouse  at  Palmetto  to  await  trial 
the  next  morning.  A  Negro  at  Atlanta,  who  also  had 
made  a  special  effort  to  get  at  the  facts,  reported  to  me 
that  the  nine  had  been  examined,  released  for  lack  of 
evidence,  and  subsequently  rearrested.  I  find  no  con 
firmatory  evidence  of  this,  and  it  seems  almost  certainly 
incorrect.  At  the  same  time  I  am  confident  that  my 
informant,  who  is  an  impartial  aud  judicious  man, 
believed  it.  In  that  case  the  two  stories  illustrate  the 
conflicting  accounts  accepted  even  by  conservative 
members  of  the  two  races. 

Soon  after  midnight  a  masked  mob  of  perhaps  fifteen 
men*  pushed  open  the  door  of  the  warehouse,  ordered 
the  guards  to  throw  up  their  hands,  and  fired  two 
volleys  into  the  nine  Negroes,  killing  four,  seriously 
wounding  two,  slightly  wounding  two,  and  leaving  one 
unharmed.  Although  the  Governor  of  Georgia  offered 
the  largest  reward  allowed  by  law,  $500,  for  the  arrest 
of  the  first  member  of  the  mob  and  $100  for  that  of  each 
additional  member,  no  one  of  the  criminals  was  detected. 
They  were  said  to  have  come  from  a  distance,  but  the 
evidence  warrants  the  conclusion  that  they  probably 
came  from  Palmetto  or  its  immediate  vicinity.  For  the 

*  Idem,  March  17,  1899,  p.  i,  col.  i 


462     The  American  Race  Problem 

indignation  over  the  fires  was  most  intense  in  that  com 
munity,  and,  furthermore,  the  confession  of  the  Negro 
leader,  apparently  the  immediate  cause  of  the  lynching, 
was  made  so  shortly  before,  that  the  news  of  it  could 
hardly  have  spread  very  far  through  the  scattered 
population  of  that  region.*  As  the  motives  to 
disclaim  responsibility  for  the  action  of  the  mob  were 
obvious  and  strong,  the  local  statements  denying  com 
plicity  can  hardly  be  given  great  weight.  If  this  view  of 
the  probabilities  be  accepted,  it  throws  light  upon  the 
action  or  inaction  of  the  guards.  The  Negro  interpre 
tation  of  their  conduct  is  that  they  were  dummies,  aware 
that  the  lynching  party  was  coming,  and  sympathising 
with  its  action.  The  whites  do  not  admit  this,  and  yet 
even  they,  if  the  Atlanta  Constitution  may  be  deemed 
their  spokesman,  felt  the  guards'  conduct  to  be  suspi 
cious.  Note  the  questions  asked  editorially  by  that 
paper:  "What  was  the  guard  there  for?  Were  the 
guardsmen  asleep  while  on  duty  ?  What  became  of  their 
guns  while  the  assailants  were  shooting  down  their  pris 
oners?  These  are  questions  which  should  be  answered, 
though  it  is  hard  to  conceive  what  answer  can  be  given. "f 
Whether  any  members  of  the  mob  of  lynchers  were 
recognised  by  the  Negroes  who  survived,  it  seems 
impossible  to  tell.  According  to  newspaper  accounts 
the  mask  was  torn  from  the  face  of  one,  and  the  leader 
spoke  in  giving  orders  to  his  followers.  Undoubtedly, 


*  "  It  is  practically  certain  now  that  the  news  of  the  confession,  which  spread 
quickly  throughout  the  town,  brought  on  the  mob  yesterday  morning." — 
Idem,  p.  2,  col.  2. 

t  Idem,  March  18,  1899,  p.  4,  col.  2. 


Negro  Criminality  463 

however,  many  Negroes  believed,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that 
members  of  the  squad  had  been  recognised. 

Four  weeks  later,  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Pal 
metto,  Alfred  Cranford  was  killed  by  a  Negro,  Sam  Hose, 
and  ten  days  after  Hose  was  put  to  death  by  a  white 
mob.  So  far,  and  only  so  far,  all  accounts  agree,  but 
two  widely  different  stories  of  the  accompanying  events 
have  been  printed,  one  coming  from  the  whites,  the 
other  from  the  Negroes.  I  may  review  and  criticise 
the  two  narratives  in  detail.  For  the  Negro  version  the 
sources  are  the  report  of  a  detective  sent  by  Northern 
Negroes  to  investigate  the  facts.  This  was  printed  both 
in  the  New  York  Age  of  June  22nd  and  in  briefer  form 
as  a  letter  by  Mr.  Fortune,  the  editor  of  the  Age,  in  the 
New  York  Sun  of  June  2oth.  In  regard  to  the  events 
prior  to  the  killing  of  Cranford,  these  accounts  say  that 
"one  or  two  barns  or  houses  had  been  burned"  at  Pal 
metto,  and  that  the  nine  coloured  men  arrested  "were 
not  men  of  bad  character,  but  quite  the  reverse."  The 
incorrectness  of  the  former  statement  has  already  been 
shown ;  that  the  latter  is  equally  inaccurate  appears  from 
the  county  records  of  Campbell  County,  which  show 
that  four  of  the  nine  had  been  indicted,  the  leader  five 
times,  another  for  burglary,  and  two  for  misdemeanours.* 
The  Negro  story  also  states  that  Cranford  was  killed  in 
the  yard,  and  not  in  the  house.  To  get  light  upon  this 
radical  difference  in  the  two  accounts,  I  wrote  to  the 
Atlanta  editor,  already  mentioned,  asking  these  ques 
tions:  "Was  the  body  of  Alfred  Cranford  found  in  the 

*  Idem,  March  18,  1899,  p.  2.  col.  3. 


464     The  American  Race  Problem 

supper  room  or  in  the  yard?"  He  answered,  "In  the 
supper  room."  "Do  you  know  this  fact  of  your  own 
knowledge  or  by  testimony  of  others?"  To  this  his 
reply  was,  "Blood  showed  position ;  eye-witnesses  testified 
as  to  place."  In  addition  to  these  errors  of  statement 
the  Negro  version  reads  like  a  plea,  and  not  an  impartial 
balancing  of  evidence,  and  puts  aside  as  untrustworthy 
the  sworn  testimony  of  Mrs.  Cranford. 

For  these  reasons,  and  others  I  need  not  stay  to 
mention,  I  am  compelled  to  reject  what  at  the  first  I 
was  disposed  to  accept  —  this  account  of  the  events. 
Still,  in  some  respects  I  cannot  but  believe  that  it  sug 
gests  the  probable  facts.  The  version  of  the  whites 
usually  implies  that  lust  was  the  main  motive  for  the 
crimes  of  Sam  Hose,  and  omits  as  irrelevant  all  reference 
to  prior  events  at  Palmetto,  a  view  which  seems  to  me 
untenable.  The  lynching  of  the  Negroes  charged  with 
arson  and  the  crimes  of  Sam  Hose  were,  perhaps,  the  most 
serious  results  of  race  friction  that  have  appeared  in 
Georgia  of  recent  years.  Assume  that  the  first  in  no 
wise  caused  the  second.  In  that  case  the  chances  against 
both  occurring  in  the  same  small  town  and  within  four 
weeks  of  each  other  would  be  indefinitely  small.  I  am 
compelled,  therefore,  to  believe  that  the  close  proximity 
in  space  and  time  is  evidence  that  the  second  was  caused 
in  part  by  the  first.  That  is,  the  furious  wrath  kindled 
among  the  Negroes  of  Palmetto  by  the  lynchers  was 
probably  a  potent  influence  upon  the  criminal  nature  of 
Sam  Hose  in  bringing  about  his  deed.  The  criminal 
nature  and  the  special  incentive  reenforced  each  other 


Negro  Criminality  465 

and  the  result  was  a  crime  at  which  Georgia  and  the 
country  stood  aghast.  The  Negro  version,  as  set  forth 
by  a  correspondent,  says  that  Cranford  was  conspicuous 
in  that  region  as  "a  nigger-hater,"  and  was  probably  the 
leader  of  the  party  of  lynchers  four  weeks  before. 
Whether  that  be  true  or  not,  it  seems  likely  that  the 
dominant  motive  for  the  murder  and  rape  was  revenge. 
On  this  theory  the  stoical  silence  with  which  Hose  bore 
his  tortures,  and  the  evident  pride  of  the  Negroes  in  that 
silence,  receive  new  meaning.  It  was  the-  weapon 
whereby,  even  in  death,  they  felt  that  he  triumphed  over 
their  enemies  and  his. 

In  the  fate  of  Sam  Hose  as  an  individual,  I  have  little 
interest.  I  believe  the  tortures  he  inflicted  upon  Mrs. 
Cranford  by  the  murder  of  her  husband,  and  in  the  hours 
that  followed,  were  more  terrible  than  those  he  suffered  at 
the  stake.  But  the  point  I  would  urge  is  that  the  illegal 
execution  of  Negroes  by  lynching,  even  when  torture  is 
added,  has  an  inciting  rather  than  a  deterring  influence 
upon  the  large  number  of  potential  criminals.  I  believe 
that  the  lynching  of  Negroes  at  Palmetto  tended  to  create 
the  animosity  out  of  which  the  crimes  of  Hose  sprang, 
that  the  tortures  and  death  of  Hose  tended  to  create 
the  feeling  out  of  which  the  crimes  at  Bainbridge,  Darien, 
and  elsewhere  sprang.  Along  such  a  road  one  can  see 
no  end  but  a  precipice. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  such  terrible  events  as  have 
occurred  sporadically  at  the  South  of  recent  years  were 
frequent  expressions  of  religious  hatred.  With  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  religious  animosities 


466     The  American  Race  Problem 

receded  into  the  background,  and  race  animosities, 
resulting  from  the  interpenetration  of  higher  and  lower 
races,  came  into  prominence.  The  hatred  between 
Catholic  and  Protestant  in  Europe  appeared  in  the 
colonies  as  hatred  between  whites,  reds,  and  blacks. 
Powerful  as  these  modern  race  passions  are  in  the  south 
ern  United  States,  they  are,  perhaps,  stronger  in  the 
Southern  Philippines,  where  religious  hatred  and  race 
hatred,  the  medieval  and  the  modern  hate  par  excel 
lence,  concur  and  reenforce  each  other.  One  may  per 
haps  forecast  the  future  increase  of  race  hatred  between 
the  lower  classes  of  the  two  races  in  the  South,  if  the 
trend  be  not  changed,  by  reflection  upon  the  attitude 
of  certain  Mohammedan  Malays  toward  Christian 
Caucasians  in  the  Philippine  Islands  as  described  by 
Professor  Worcester. 

"  Finally,  there  was  a  rumour  that  a  band  of  juramen- 
tados  was  about  to  attack  the  place.  Now  a  juramen- 
tado  is  a  most  unpleasant  sort  of  individual  to  encounter. 
The  Moros  believe  that  one  who  takes  the  life  of  a  Chris 
tian  thereby  increases  his  chance  of  a  good  time  in  the 
world  to  come.  The  more  Christians  killed,  the  brighter 
the  prospect  for  the  future,  and,  if  one  is  only  fortunate 
enough  to  be  himself  killed  while  slaughtering  the 
enemies  of  the  faithful,  he  is  at  once  transported  to  the 
seventh  heaven. 

"From  time  to  time  it  happens  that  one  of  them 
wearies  of  this  life,  and,  desiring  to  take  the  shortest 
road  to  glory,  he  bathes  in  a  sacred  spring,  shaves  off  his 
eyebrows,  dresses  in  white,  and  presents  himself  to  a 


Negro  Criminality  467 

pandita  to  take  a  solemn  oath  (juramentar)  to  die  killing 
Christians.  He  then  hides  a  kris  or  barong  about  his 
person  or  in  something  that  he  carries,  and  seeks  the 
nearest  town.  If  he  can  gain  admission,  he  snatches 
his  weapon  from  its  concealment  and  runs  amuck,  slay 
ing  every  living  being  in  his  path,  until  he  is  finally 
himself  dispatched.  So  long  as  the  breath  of  life  remains 
in  him,  he  fights  on. 

"Eye-witnesses  have  repeatedly  informed  me  that 
they  have  seen  juramentados  seize  the  barrel  of  a  rifle, 
on  being  bayoneted,  and  drive  the  steel  into  themselves 
further,  in  order  to  bring  the  soldier  at  the  other  end  of 
the  piece  within  striking  distance  and  cut  him  down. 

"The  number  of  lives  taken  by  one  of  these  mad 
fanatics  is  sometimes  almost  incredible,  but  he  is  even 
tually  killed  himself,  and  his  relatives  have  a  celebration 
when  the  news  of  his  death  reaches  them.  They  always 
insist  that,  just  as  night  is  coming  on  they  see  him  riding 
by  on  a  white  horse,  bound  for  the  abode  of  the  blessed."* 

The  white  Caucasians  of  the  Philippines  regard  a 
juramentado  as  a  peculiarly  fiendish  criminal;  many  of 
the  brown  Malays  regard  him  as  a  saint  and  emulate  his 
deeds.  The  white  Caucasians  of  Georgia  regard  Sam 
Hose  as  a  peculiarly  fiendish  criminal ;  many  of  the  black 
Africans,  I  fear,  regard  him  as  an  innocent  man  and  a 
martyr.  As  this  point  is  of  much  importance  for  my 
argument,  and  will  not  meet  ready  acceptance  among 
those  who,  like  myself,  are  convinced  of  his  guilt,  I  offer 
all  the  evidence  on  both  sides  that  I  have  secured. 


*  Worcester,  "The  Philippine  Islands,"  pp.  175,  ff. 


468     The  American  Race  Problem 

I  have  talked  with  two  Negroes  of  national  reputation 
and  of  the  highest  standing  among  the  best  members  of 
both  races.  Each  doubted  that  Sam  Hose  was  guilty 
of  rape,  and  yet  neither  was  willing  to  express  that  doubt 
over  his  own  name.  A  well-known  representative  of  a 
Northern  paper  went  South  to  report  upon  the  facts, 
and  during  his  investigation  had  a  meeting  with  a  dozen 
or  more  representative  Negroes  of  Atlanta,  to  get  their 
point  of  view.  Both  by  him  and  by  another  of  those 
present  I  am  assured  that  none  of  the  Negroes  at  the  con 
ference  was  convinced  of  the  guilt  of  Sam  Hose.  To 
this  evidence  should  be  added  that  of  the  detective 
employed  by  the  Negroes,  and  probably  reflecting  their 
beliefs.  On  the  other  side  the  only  important  testimony 
that  has  reached  me  is  contained  in  a  letter  from  ex-Gov 
ernor  Atkinson,  written  shortly  before  his  death:  "  I  have 
delayed  answering  your  inquiry,  in  order  that  I  might 
talk  with  some  of  the  white  and  coloured  people  from 
that  section  of  the  country  in  a  confidential  way.  .  . 
The  investigation  made  by  me  satisfies  me  that  there 
is  no  reason  for  the  doubt  expressed  by  you  in  your  letter. 
The  Negroes  with  whom  I  have  talked  would  have  had 
no  hesitancy  in  giving  me  the  information  asked  for,  as 
in  each  case  I  assured  them  that  their  names  would  not 
be  used  and  that  I  did  not  wish  their  personal  opinion, 
but  wished  to  know  what  the  other  Negroes  thought. 
One  of  my  informants  was  a  Negro  client  of  mine,  who 
is  a  well-to-do  man  living  in  that  neighbourhood,  knows 
the  opinion  of  the  coloured  people,  and  I  know  would 
not  hesitate  to  have  told  me  that  the  Negroes  doubted 


Negro  Criminality  469 

Hose's  guilt  if  such  doubt  had  existed."  Even  this 
evidence,  strong  as  it  is,  does  not  outweigh  in  my  mind 
that  on  the  other  side  These  Negroes  may  have  been 
unwilling  to  speak  the  truth  even  to  Governor  Atkinson 
upon  a  matter  on  which  feeling  was  so  tense  or  they 
may  have  been  representative  of  the  class  of  Negroes  in 
close  touch  with  the  whites  and  more  ready  than  others 
to  derive  their  beliefs  from  that  source,  or  it  may  be  that 
in  the  Negro  community  where  the  Cranfords  and  Sam 
Hose  were  known  belief  in  his  guilt  is  more  prevalent 
than  elsewhere.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  conclude  that 
a  large  proportion  of  the  Negroes  of  Georgia  do  not  share 
the  belief  of  their  white  neighbours  about  the  guilt  of 
Sam  Hose. 

In  a  recent  appeal  to  the  people  of  Georgia  the  Gover 
nor  said:  "Lynch  law  does  not  stop  arson  or  murder 
or  robbery  or  rape;"  and  the  Atlanta  Constitution  said 
editorially:  "The  punishment  of  the  criminals  who  are 
overtaken,  no  matter  how  swift  or  how  bloody,  seems 
to  have  no  effect  whatever  on  the  criminal  class  among 
the  Negroes.  They  seem  to  go  as  cheerfully  about  their 
crimes  as  if  they  were  candidates  for  a  martyr's  crown; 
they  murder,  ravish,  and  rob  with  all  the  zeal  and  fervour 
of  religious  fanatics."  These  opinions  testify  to  a  grow 
ing  disbelief  among  whites  in  the  efficacy  of  lynch  law  as 
a  deterrent.  As  force  is  failing,  some  other  means  must 
be  enlisted  in  defence  of  civilisation.  In  slavery  days 
such  crimes  were  almost  unknown,  and  mainly  because 
of  the  loyalty  of  the  slaves  to  their  owners.  Any  effort 
on  the  part  of  members  of  either  race  to  break  down 


470     The  American  Race  Problem 

those  barriers  between  them,  which  have  been  reared 
under  Reconstruction  and  race  competition,  and  to  restore 
the  former  relations  must  be  of  service.  But,  if  this 
divergent  trend  of  the  two  races  continues,  the  only 
effective  means  of  governing  the  criminal  Negro  is 
through  the  cooperation  of  the  better  elements  of  his 
own  race.  Negro  criminals  have  little  regard  for  the 
condemnation  of  whites,  whom  they  have  learned  to 
hate.  Their  feeling  toward  the  better  class  of  coloured 
men  cannot  be  of  the  same  sort.  The  Atlanta  Consti 
tution  recently  appealed  to  the  Negroes  as  follows: 
"The  honest,  industrious,  and  self-respecting  Negroes 
.  .  .  should  take  some  measure  calculated  to  deter  the 
criminals  of  their  colour  from  their  horrible  work.  .  .  . 
The  Negroes  would  have  little  trouble  in  reaching  the 
ears  of  the  criminals.  .  .  .  The  Negroes  alone  can 
put  an  end  to  a  condition  of  affairs  that  is  growing  worse 
every  day."  I  believe  this  to  the  full,  but  I  also  believe 
that  the  whites  cannot  win  this  cooperation  from  the 
Negroes  unless  they  are  prepared  to  give  a  quid  pro  quo. 
After  the  killing  of  Sam  Hose,  the  Governor  of  Georgia 
is  reported  to  have  said:  "The  Negroes  of  the  commun 
ity  lost  the  best  opportunity  they  will  ever  have  to 
elevate  themselves  in  the  estimation  of  their  white 
neighbours.  Had  they  helped  to  bring  Hose  to  justice, 
it  would  have  helped  the  cause  in  the  eyes  of  the  people. 
.  .  .  The  good  and  law-abiding  Negroes  must  aid  in 
bringing  criminals  to  justice,  whether  they  be  white  or 
black."  If  Governor  Candler  was  correctly  reported 
and  weighed  his  words,  he  clearly  implied  a  belief  that 


Negro  Criminality  471 

Hose  was  brought  to  justice  when  he  was  illegally  put 
to  death.  Killing  by  a  mob  for  any  offence,  however 
hateful,  is  regarded  even  by  conservative  and  order- 
loving  Negroes  as  an  injustice,  and,  where  there  is  a 
tacit  understanding  in  the  community,  as  there  was 
during  the  pursuit  of  Hose,  that  the  criminal  if  caught 
will  be  lynched,  nothing  more  than  quiescence  can  be 
secured  from  the  Negroes.  If  my  conclusion  is  correct, 
the  Southern  whites  must  choose  in  such  cases  between 
gratifying  a  strong  and  natural  desire  for  immediate 
retaliation,  and  coolly  selecting  the  course  which  is  best 
adapted  to  prevent  such  crimes  in  the  future.  I  believe 
that  ex-Governor  Atkinson,  in  dissuading  the  mob  from 
burning  Hose  at  the  stake  and  urging  them  to  let  the  law 
take  its  course,  was  choosing  the  wise  way  of  preventing 
such  crimes  in  the  future,  was  the  real  defender  of  South 
ern  homes  and  Southern  women. 

Now  it  seems  clear  that  the  guilt  of  Sam  Hose  was 
established  by  more  convincing  evidence  than  is  secured 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  perhaps  in  ninety-nine  out  of 
one  hundred,  in  which  a  lynching  occurs.  If  this  evi 
dence  has  failed  to  convince  a  large  proportion  of 
Southern  Negroes,  including  probably  nearly  all  those  of 
criminal  tendencies,  then  in  other  cases,  where  the 
evidence  is  less  conclusive,  they  must  be  less  convinced. 
What  the  facts  are  is  of  less  importance  than  what  they 
are  believed  to  be,  for  belief,  not  fact,  is  the  motive  by 
which  men  are  swayed. 

To  make  my  conclusions  upon  this  subject  clearer,  I 
may  briefly  state  certain  views  with  which  I  cannot  agree; 


472     The  American  Race  Problem 

1.  I  cannot  accept  a  large  proportion  of  the  accounts 
printed  in  Northern  papers,  describing  the  relations  of 
the  two  races  in  the  South.     One  of  the  virtues  of  civili 
sation    imperfectly    developed    in    the    Negro    race    is 
veracity,    and   accounts   coming    from   them   must   be 
tested  carefully  before  acceptance.     Where  nothing  is 
known  regarding  the  trustworthiness  of  the  witnesses  or 
the  inherent  probability  of  the  statements,  the  presump 
tion  is  in  favour  of  the  white  man's  testimony.     Hence 
those  newspapers  which  apparently  make  the  contrary 
presumption    are    often    misled.     One    instance    which 
came  under  my  own  observation  may  serve  for  a  hun 
dred.     A  lynching  occurred  in   1899  at  Alexandria,  Va., 
within  five  miles  of  the  national  capital.     A  Washington 
correspondent  of  the  Boston  Transcript  described  the 
facts,  and  said  that  the  Negro  boy  was  guilty  of  nothing 
more  than  insulting  a  child.     The  Springfield  Republican 
reprinted  the  letter,  and  in  editorial  comment  said  that 
the  boy's  only  crime  was  his  colour.     I  went  at  once  to 
the  mayor  of  Alexandria,  and  learned  from  him  that  at 
a  hearing  over  which  he  presided  the  eight-year-old  girl 
testified  that  the   Negro  had  been  guilty  of  indecent 
familiarities  upon  her  by  force.     Probably  any  Southern 
jury,  on  hearing  the  child's  testimony,  would  have  found 
the  Negro  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  commit  rape.     Yet 
representative   Northern  newspapers  in   reliance   upon 
their  sources  of  information  have  seriously  misrepre 
sented  the  facts. 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  admit  that  all  or  most 
of  the  alienation  between  the  races  is  due  to  the  grave 


Negro  Criminality  473 

mistakes  of  the  Reconstruction  period  or  to  the  present 
policy  of  Northern  papers.  Race  antagonism  appears  in 
other  parts  of  the  country,  and  in  other  countries,  where 
this  cause  does  not  exist.  To  ascribe  race  friction  at  the 
South,  as  certain  Southern  writers  and  speakers  do, 
solely  or  mainly  to  the  past  or  present  policy  of  the 
Government  toward  the  Southern  states  or  to  the  tone  of 
Northern  papers,  and  then  to  say  almost  in  the  same 
breath  that  race  friction  and  lynching  are  found  in  the 
North,  is  clearly  inconsistent.  The  friction  between 
the  races  was  probably  an  inevitable  result  of  emancipa 
tion,  although  hastened  and  intensified  by  the  blun 
ders  of  Reconstruction. 

3.  It  seems  improbable  that  the  policy  of  enlisting 
Negroes  as  Federal  soldiers  has  had  a  decided  effect  in 
increasing  Negro  crime.     Certainly,  the  evidence  offered 
in  favour  of  this  claim  is  by  no  means  sufficient  to  estab 
lish  the  conclusion. 

4.  A  restricted  suffrage  in  the  Southern  states  will 
probably  not  avail  materially  to  improve  the  conditions. 
Negro  crime  is  apparently  about  as  frequent  and  heinous 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  where  for  a  generation  the 
race  has  had  no  political  privileges,  as  it  is  in  the  states 
of  the  far  South. 

5.  Education,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term,  will 
not  materially  improve  the  situation.     An  education 
which  will  aid  the  Negro  in  securing  self-support  is  of 
primary  importance. 

6.  No  Federal  legislation,  such  as  that  demanded  by 
certain  Negroes  against  lynching  or  that  demanded  by 


474      The  American  Race  Problem 

certain  of  both  races  making  large  appropriations  for 
deportation  of  the  Negroes,  seems  likely  to  be  enacted 
or  offers  a  real  and  adequate  solution  of  the  problem. 

Positively,  I  may  sum  up  my  conclusions  as  follows: 

A  large  and  increasing  amount  of  Negro  crime  is  mani 
fested  all  over  the  country. 

This  raises  a  problem  pressing  with  especial  weight 
upon  the  states  where  Negroes  are  numerous. 

The  causes  may  be  grouped  as  defective  family  life, 
defective  industrial  equipment  and  ability  in  compari 
son  with  their  competitors,  increasing  race  solidarity 
among  the  Negroes,  and  increasing  alienation  from  the 
whites. 

Southern  whites  often  exaggerate  the  agency  of  North 
ern  whites  or  Northern  Negroes  in  causing  the  present 
condition,  and  thus  minimise  their  own  responsibility. 

Northern  whites  often  ignore  the  burden  which  South 
ern  whites  and  the  better  class  of  Negroes  are  carrying 
and  the  degree  to  which  the  Federal  policy  since  the  war 
has  contributed  to  increase  race  friction  and  Negro  crime. 
Hence  they  are  often  ignorant  and  unjust  in  their 
criticisms. 

These  misunderstandings  are  the  strongest  basis  for 
the  continuance  and  possible  increase  of  sectional  antag 
onism  between  North  and  South. 

Lynching  is  harmful  mainly  because  it  prevents  the 
rise  of  a  public  opinion  based  on  a  careful  sifting  of  the 
facts.  Where  practised  under  any  provocation,  how 
ever  great,  by  members  of  one  race  upon  those  of  another, 
it  fosters  the  development  of  separate  public  opinions, 


Negro  Criminality  475 

one  for  each  race,  and  hence  tends  to  make  cooperation 
of  the  two  in  one  government  impossible. 

There  has  probably  never  been  a  more  complete  dem 
ocracy  than  in  the  New  England  towns.  Modern  gov 
ernments  tend  toward  a  more  democratic  form,  and 
at  the  North  the  belief  is  very  deep  seated  that  the  prog 
ress  of  humanity  is  dependent  upon  the  maintenance 
and  progress  of  democratic  government.  Now  demo 
cratic  government  is  essentially  a  government  by 
organised  legal  public  opinion.  Any  attempt  to  intro 
duce  government  by  disorganised  public  opinion  secures 
at  best  the  will  of  only  a  fraction  of  the  public.  Hence  a 
believer  in  democracy  is  bound  to  be  an  opponent  of 
lynch  law,  and  the  strength  of  the  opposition  in  the 
North  to  lynch  law  is  due,  not  as  is  sometimes  said  to 
hatred  of  the  South,  but  rather  to  a  love  for  democracy. 

The  greatest  problem  which  modern  democracy  has  to 
face  is  perhaps  this:  Can  the  democratic  forms  developed 
among  a  homogeneous  people  with  unifying  traditions, 
like  the  people  of  England,  Old  and  New,  be  extended  to 
people  widely  different  in  race,  religion,  and  ethical  and 
social  code?  Can  English  forms  of  government  ulti 
mately  apply  to  India  and  Egypt  and  South  Africa? 
Can  American  forms  be  extended  to  the  two  races  at  the 
South  or  in  the  Philippines?  Either  the  public  opinion 
of  one  race  must  dominate,  as  that  of  the  whites  has  done 
in  India  and  the  South,  or  the  two  races  must  cooperate 
so  far  as  to  develop  a  common  public  opinion.  The  lat 
ter  is  the  only  true  democracy. 


II 

CENSUS  STATISTICS  OF  THE  NEGRO  * 

THERE  is  no  leading  country  in  which  the  relations 
of  widely  different  races  are  so  important  as  in 
the  United  States.  As  a  natural  result  of  this,  there  is 
no  country  in  which  statistical  investigation  of  race 
questions  is  so  highly  developed,  or  in  which  the  records 
cover  so  long  a  time.  In  Europe  it  is  not  customary  to 
recognise  or  emphasise  the  race  classification  of  the  popu 
lation  in  statistical  returns.  In  India  the  race  classifi 
cation  while  recognised  is  subsidiary  to  that  of  religion 
and  of  language.  In  American  countries  to  the  south 
of  the  United  States,  where  race  relations  are  as  complex 
and  as  diverse  as  they  are  with  us,  the  statistical  method 
is  imperfectly  developed  or  of  recent  introduction.  The 
main  sources  of  statistical  information,  therefore,  regard 
ing  race  relations  are  the  figures  for  the  United  States 
and  those  for  several  of  the  West  Indian  Islands. 

Since  the  Civil  War  the  statistical  study  of  certain 
aspects  of  race  questions  in  the  United  States  has  been 
entered  upon  by  different  governmental  agencies.  The 
Department  of  Agriculture  has  made  investigations  of 
the  diet  and  food  supply  of  Negroes  and  of  whites  with 
especial  reference  to  the  bodily  heat  and  the  energy  it 

*  Yale  Review,  November,  1 904. 

476 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro 


477 


can  produce.  The  Department  of  Labour  has  made  a 
number  of  suggestive  reports  upon  the  condition  of 
Negro  communities  in  certain  typical  localities.  Various 
municipal  health  reports  throw  light  upon  the  vital 
statistics  of  the  two  races.  The  Bureau  of  Education 
has  gathered  much  information  regarding  the  educa 
tional  development  of  Negroes  and  whites.  But  no 
one  of  these  and  perhaps  not  all  of  them  combined  have 
furnished  or  are  furnishing  at  the  present  time  as  much 
information  regarding  the  statistics  of  race  in  the  United 
States  as  the  Census  Bureau.*  It  is  of  the  highest  impor 
tance  that  the  information  thus  gathered  should  be  care 
fully  and  intelligently  interpreted  and  its  lessons  cor 
rectly  read.  The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  state  certain 
conclusions  to  which  I  have  been  brought  by  my  statis 
tical  studies  of  the  subject  and  especially  of  the  recent 
census  figures. 

The  population  of  the  United  States  is  divided  by  the 
census  returns  into  four  classes,  the  native  white  of 
native  parents,  the  native  white  of  foreign  born  parents, 
that  is,  the  children  of  immigrants,  the  immigrant  or 
foreign  born  white  class,  and  the  other  races  than  the 
white,  sometimes  called  collectively  the  coloured,  perhaps 
more  accurately  described  as  the  "non-Caucasians." 
The  most  accurate  description  of  them  is  to  enumerate 
the  great  races  to  which  they  belong,  namely,  the 
Negro,  Indian,  and  Mongolian.  Of  this  fourth  group, 
the  non-Caucasians,  more  than  nineteen-twentieths 


*  See  especially  Census  Bulletin  8,  entitled  "Negroes  in  the  United  States," 
Washington,  1904. 


478     The  American  Race  Problem 

are  Negroes  and  therefore  when  statements  are  made, 
as  I  shall  be  compelled  sometimes  to  make  them,  not  for 
the  Negroes  but  for  the  non-Caucasians,  it  will  be  under 
stood  that  nineteen-twentieths  of  these  are  Negroes  and 
what  is  true,  therefore,  of  the  non-Caucasians  is  probably 
tine  of  the  Negroes.  These  four  classes  correspond 
roughly  to  four  grades  of  economic  well-being  —  the 
native  white  of  native  parents  at  the  top,  the  Negroes, 
Indians,  and  Mongolians  at  the  bottom.  Now  it  is  a 
general  fact  that  the  lower  the  scale  of  economic  well- 
being  the  less  accurate  on  the  average  will  be  the  answers 
to  questions  put  them.  A  measure  of  this  can  be 
derived  from  the  answers  to  the  age  question.  It  can 
be  easily  proved  that  the  errors  in  reporting  ages  among 
the  immigrant  white  are  about  twice  as  numerous  as 
among  the  native  white  and  among  the  non-Caucasians 
about  twice  as  numerous  as  among  the  immigrant  white. 
Where  age  is  stated  erroneously  it  is  usually  stated  at  a 
round  number  as  a  multiple  of  5.  The  excess  in  the 
reported  number  at  these  multiples  of  five  over  the  esti 
mated  true  number  is  thus  a  measure  of  the  accuracy  of 
the  figures.  This  excess  in  1 900  among  persons  between 
twenty-eight  and  sixty-two  years  of  age  inclusive  for 
the  native  whites  was  12.4  per  cent,  of  the  total  estimated 
number  at  multiples  of  5,  for  the  foreign  born  white  29.8, 
and  for  the  Negro  81.2  per  cent.  What  is  true  of  the 
inaccuracies  in  the  field  of  age  statistics  is  probably  true 
of  other  sorts  of  inaccuracies.  A  larger  proportion  of 
the  Negro  population  than  of  the  white  is  homeless  and 
therefore  likely  to  be  omitted  by  enumerators  instructed 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      479 

to  visit  every  home  in  the  country.  In  Maryland  a 
careful  recount  of  nearly  63,000  people  was  had  a  few 
months  after  the  census  day  in  the  effort  to  detect 
suspected  fraud.  The  recount  showed  that  in  the 
original  count  the  omissions  among  Negroes  had  been 
3.7  per  cent,  and  among  whites  1.3  per  cent.  These 
omissions  were  probably  greater  than  in  the  general 
population,  but  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  per  cent,  of 
omissions  among  Negroes  is  twice  as  great  as  the  per 
cent,  among  whites. 

There  is  no  race  question  upon  which  we  have  so  great 
a  lack  of  scientific  information  at  the  present  time  as 
that  of  the  degree  of  direct  intermixture  of  the  two 
races.  Public  opinion  at  the  South  seems  to  be  almost 
unanimous  in  its  belief  that,  since  the  Civil  War  and 
emancipation,  intermixture  of  the  two  races  has  de 
creased  and  that  the  mulatto  population  at  the  present 
time  is  largely  the  offspring  of  mulattoes  alone  or  of 
mulattoes  and  Negroes,  and  that  there  has  been  relatively 
little  new  infusion  of  white  blood.  But  no  statistical 
basis  for  this  opinion  exists,  and  general  observation  on 
a  question  so  difficult  and  delicate  must  be  regarded  as 
a  very  slippery  foundation  for  the  belief.  Questions  on 
this  point  were  introduced  into  the  censuses  of  1850, 
1860, 1870, 1880,  and  1890,  and  the  results  were  tabulated 
and  published  for  each  of  these  censuses  except  1880. 
Prior  to  1890  the  question  was  asked  in  substantially 
the  same  terms,  that  is,  simply  the  number  of  mulattoes. 
In  1890,  unfortunately,  it  was  sought  to  amplify  the 
question  and  Congress  required  the  Census  Office  to 


480      The  American  Race  Problem 

report  the  number  of  mulattoes,  quadroons,  and  octo 
roons.  Such  precision  in  this  field  is  unobtainable 
and,  in  natural  reaction  against  the  misleading  results 
obtained  in  1890,  the  office  in  1900  omitted  the  question 
entirely.  I  cannot  feel  that  this  was  wise.  The  results 
obtained  in  1850,  1860  and  1870  for  the  whole  United 
States  showed  substantial  agreement,  the  per  cent,  of 
mulattoes  among  the  total  Negroes  having  been  reported 
as  in  1850,  11.2;  in  1860,  13.2;  in  1870,  12.0.  These 
figures  cannot  be  accepted  as  showing  an  increase  in  the 
proportion  of  mulattoes  down  to  the  Civil  War  and  a 
slight  decrease  after  that  time,  much  less  can  the 
slightly  larger  proportion  of  mulattoes  reported  in  1890 
(15.2  per  cent.)  with  a  different  form  of  question  be 
regarded  as  any  evidence  of  an  increase  of  race  mixture 
since  emancipation,  but  the  general  conclusion  that 
between  one-eighth  and  one-ninth  of  the  Negro  popula 
tion  at  about  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  was  mulatto 
may  be  regarded  as  probable. 

I  believe  that,  if  the  question  should  be  repeated  in 
1910  in  substantially  the  same  terms  as  those  employed 
in  1850,  1860,  1870,  and  1880,  the  results  would  be  likely 
to  indicate  far  more  accurately  than  general  observation 
can  do  whether  the  proportion  of  mulattoes  among  the 
Negroes  has  increased  or  decreased  since  emancipation. 
To  establish  this,  one  need  not  believe  that  the  reported 
percentages  at  former  censuses  were  correct.  All  that 
would  be  necessary  for  such  a  result  would  be  that  the 
question  put  in  substantially  the  same  terms  at  inter 
vals  during  half  a  century  would  secure  answers  which 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      481 

if  not  entirely  accurate  would  at  least  err  in  the  same 
direction  and  by  about  the  same  relative  amount. 

At  the  present  time  there  are  about  nine  and  one- 
fifth  million  Negroes  under  the  United  States  flag,  includ 
ing  those  in  Porto  Rico,  Alaska,  and  Hawaii,  as  well  as 
the  Negroes  of  continental  United  States.  This  does 
not  include  the  Negritoes,  much  less  the  Malays,  of  the 
Philippine  Islands.  In  continental  United  States, 
excluding  Alaska  and  our  insular  accessions,  there  are 
about  eight  and  five-sixths  million  Negroes.  Nearly 
nine-tenths  of  them  (89.7  per  cent.)  live  in  the  Southern 
states,  that  is,  the  states  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line,  the  Ohio  River  and  the  parallel  of  the  southern 
boundary  of  Missouri.  The  per  cent,  living  in  the 
Southern  states,  however,  is  very  slowly  decreasing.  In 
1860,  92.2  per  cent,  were  living  there;  in  1880,  90.5  per 
cent.;  in  1900,  89.7  per  cent.,  or  in  other  words,  in  1860, 
78  Negroes  among  each  1,000  in  the  country  were  living 
outside  of  the  South,  in  1900,  103  in  each  1,000.  Appar 
ently  there  was  a  considerable  change  in  the  distribution 
of  the  Negroes  as  a  result  of  the  upheaval  in  the  Civil 
War.  Then  followed  a  period  of  relative  quiescence, 
but  in  the  last  decade  of  the  century  there  was  an 
increase  in  the  northward  current  of  Negro  migration, 
especially  to  northern  cities.  That  the  Negro  popula 
tion  in  our  large  cities  is  increasing  with  greater  rapidity 
than  the  white  population  appears  clearly  when  the  totals 
of  the  two  races  are  obtained  for  the  thirty-eight  cities, 
each  of  which  had  at  least  100,000  inhabitants  in  1900. 
The  increase  of  Negroes  in  these  cities,  1890  to  1900,  was 


482      The  American  Race  Problem 

38.0  per  cent.,  and  that  of  whites  32.7  per  cent.,  and 
in  the  five  Southern  cities  of  this  class,  Baltimore, 
Washington,  Louisville,  Memphis,  and  New  Orleans,  the 
increase  of  whites  was  20.8,  and  of  Negroes  25.8  per  cent. 
Washington  was  the  only  Southern  city  of  this  class  in 
which  the  Negro  population  did  not  increase,  1890  to 
1900,  with  greater  rapidity  than  the  white.  This  rapid 
increase  of  the  Negro  population  in  the  larger  cities  of 
the  country  is  the  more  significant,  because  thirty-three 
of  these  thirty-eight  cities  lie  in  the  north  and  west  and 
therefore  increase  of  their  Negro  population  usually 
results  from  long-distance  migration,  and  because  also 
the  Negro  population  of  smaller  cities  and  of  country 
districts  has  been  increasing  as  a  rule  less  rapidly  than 
the  white  population. 

There  is  no  traceable  tendency  to  a  separation  between 
Negroes  and  whites  in  the  South  whereby  the  Negro 
population  is  becoming  more  predominant  in  the  rural 
districts  and  the  white  population  in  the  cities.  Per 
haps  the  best  evidence  on  this  point  is  that  derived  from 
the  242  cities  in  the  South  Atlantic  and  South  Central 
states,  which  had  at  least  2,500  inhabitants  both  in  1890 
and  in  1900,  and  for  which,  therefore,  the  race  composi 
tion  of  the  population  was  separately  returned.  The 
Negro  population  of  these  242  places  increased  between 
1890  and  1900  by  21.7  per  cent.,  the  white  population  by 
26.5  per  cent.  The  Negro  population  of  the  rest  of  the 
Southern  states  outside  these  242  places  increased  16.4 
per  cent.,  while  the  white  population  outside  these  242 
places  increased  25.0  per  cent.  The  figures  show  the 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      483 

remarkable  fact,  which  so  far  as  I  know  is  unparalleled, 
that  the  growth  of  white  population  in  the  South  has 
been  almost  as  rapid  in  the  country  districts  as  in  the 
cities.  Whether  this  means  that  the  white  population 
is  betaking  itself  more  to  agriculture,  it  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  decide  from  the  figures.  The  Negro  population  is 
increasing  in  Southern  cities  about  one-third  faster  than 
in  country  districts.  Or,  the  facts  may  be  stated  per 
haps  more  intelligibly  in  this  way.  In  the  242  Southern 
cities  for  which  the  race  figures  are  distinguished  both 
for  1890  and  for  1900,  there  were  in  1890,  464  Negroes  to 
1,000  whites;  in  1900  there  were  447,  a  decrease  of  17. 
Meantime,  in  the  country  districts  there  were  in  1890, 
522  Negroes  to  1,000  whites,  and  in  1900  there  were  486, 
a  decrease  of  36.  These  figures  show  that  the  decrease 
in  the  proportion  of  Negroes  relative  to  whites  in  the 
Southern  states  in  the  last  decade  has  been  twice  as 
rapid  in  the  country  districts  as  in  the  cities. 

In  studying  the  increase  of  the  Negro  population  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  figures  of  1870  are 
admitted  to  be  seriously  inaccurate.  There  are  some 
reasons  also  for  doubting  the  accuracy  of  the  census  of 
the  Negroes  in  1890.  In  order  to  avoid  using  these 
erroneous  or  questionable  figures  and  also  in  order  to 
base  the  computation  on  long  periods  of  time,  the  in 
crease  has  been  computed  for  each  of  the  five  twenty- 
year  periods  of  the  nineteenth  century.  As  the  Negro 
problem  is  preeminently  one  of  interest  to  the  South  it 
seems  fairer  to  compare  the  growth  of  the  two  races  in 
that  region.  Such  a  comparison  shows  that  the  Negro 


484      The  American  Race  Problem 

population  of  the  South  increased  most  rapidly  during 
the  first  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
that  its  rate  of  increase  steadily  declined  to  the  end  of  the 
century.  The  rate  of  increase  of  Southern  whites  was 
highest  not  from  1800  to  1820,  but  1840  to  1860.  Per 
haps  the  results  may  be  stated  in  a  way  to  make  them 
most  easily  intelligible  by  treating  the  rate  of  increase  of 
whites  in  the  Southern  states  in  the  given  twenty-year 
period  as  100  and  comparing  with  it  the  rate  of  increase 
of  Southern  Negroes  during  the  same  period  of  time. 
Following  this  method,  the  increase  of  the  Southern 
Negroes,  1800  to  1820,  was  to  that  of  Southern  whites 
as  125  to  100,  that  from  1820  to  1840  was  no,  that  from 
1840  to  1860  was  87,  that  from  1860  to  1880  was  90,  and 
that  from  1880  to  1900  was  57.  These  figures  show  that 
since  1840  the  increase  of  Southern  Negroes  has  been  less 
rapid  than  that  of  Southern  whites,  and  that  the  increase 
from  1860  to  1880  was  relatively  more  rapid  than  in  the 
preceding  or  the  following  twenty-year  period,  suggest 
ing  that  the  period  of  war  and  of  Reconstruction  affected 
the  increase  of  the  white  race  more  than  that  of  the 
Negroes.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  Southern  Negroes  were  increasing  much  faster  than 
the  Southern  whites.  At  the  end  of  it  they  were  increas 
ing  only  about  three-fifths  as  fast. 

But  to  complete  the  presentation  of  the  results 
reached  by  the  Census  Bureau  on  this  point,  it  should  be 
added  that  if  the  results  for  the  last  twenty-year  period 
be  analysed  by  decade's  a  different  conclusion  is  indi 
cated.  Comparison  of  the  rates  of  growth  of  Southern 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      485 

Negroes  and  Southern  whites  for  those  two  decades 
shows  that  the  rate  of  increase  for  Southern  Negroes,  1880 
to  1890,  was  to  that  of  Southern  whites  as  55  is  to  100, 
while  in  the  decade  from  1890  to  1 900  it  was  as  68  to  100. 
I  confess  myself  skeptical  of  the  accuracy  of  these 
figures.  It  is  difficult  for  me  to  accept  results  which 
show  on  their  face  that  the  rate  of  increase  of  Southern 
whites  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  was  less,  1890  to 
1900,  than  it  was  1880  to  1890,  the  rate  falling  from  19.1 
to  18.7,  while  that  for  Southern  Negroes  in  the  same  area 
was  much  greater  in  the  second  decade,  the  rate  rising 
from  10.6  to  15.7.  At  the  same  time  I  see  nothing  better 
at  present  than  to  mark  these  figures  as  questionable 
and  to  suspend  judgment  until  the  results  for  1910  are 
published.  It  may  be  that  the  increase  among  the 
Negroes  has  been  affected  by  the  marked  prosperity  of 
the  South  in  recent  years  and  has  been  affected  more 
conspicuously  than  the  figures  for  the  whites. 

With  reference  to  sex,  it  may  be  noted  that  there  is 
an  excess  of  females  among  the  Negro  population  of  the 
United  States,  while  this  is  not  true  either  of  the  Indians 
or  of  the  native  whites.  Strangely  enough,  this  excess 
of  females  is  found  even  at  the  very  earliest  ages.  It  is 
a  general  rule  that  the  number  of  male  children  born 
exceeds  the  number  of  female.  Among  100  children 
born,  on  the  average  about  51  are  male  and  49  female. 
The  scanty  records  of  births  in  cities  where  the  Negroes 
constitute  a  considerable  element  of  the  population 
show  that  in  this  respect  the  Negroes  conform  to  the  rule. 
Yet  Negro  children  even  at  the  very  earliest  ages,  as 


486      The  American  Race  Problem 

enumerated  by  the  census,  show  an  excess  of  females 
over  males.  This  is  true  of  Negro  children  under  one 
month,  and  of  each  of  the  four  other  subdivisions  of  age 
under  one  year.  Indeed,  it  is  true  for  every  year  of  age 
up  to  nine.  It  may  be  noted  that  this  anomaly  appears 
for  the  first  time  in  the  figures  for  1 900.  Whether  it  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  that  census  first  made  the  distinction 
between  Negro  population  and  the  total  coloured,  includ 
ing  the  Indians  and  Mongolians,  I  am  unable  to  say. 

In  the  city  population  of  the  United  States  as  a  rule, 
females  outnumber  the  males.  This  generalisation  holds 
true  of  the  great  majority  of  cities  east  of  the  Mississippi 
River.  It  is  more  true  of  the  Negroes  than  it  is  of  the 
whites.  In  the  Southern  cities  and  towns  having  at 
least  2,500  inhabitants  in  1900,  there  were  9  more  Negro 
females  than  males  in  each  100  of  Negro  population. 
Among  children  the  two  sexes  were  approximately 
equal  in  numbers,  so  that  if  the  figures  allowed  us  to 
exclude  the  children  the  preponderance  of  females  would 
be  still  greater.  The  cause  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in 
large  measure  in  the  greater  demand  and  greater  oppor 
tunity  for  female  labour  in  cities. 

At  the  present  time  rather  more  than  half  of  the 
Negroes  over  ten  years  of  age  are  able  to  write.  The 
per  cent,  of  illiteracy  has  decreased  rapidly  in  the  last 
ten  years.  In  1890  it  was  57.1,  while  in  1900  it  was  45.5. 
This  rapid  decrease  in  Negro  illiteracy  has  gone  on  par 
allel  with  the  rapid  decrease  of  illiteracy  among  whites. 
At  the  present  time  the  Negroes  as  a  race  show  about 
seven  times  the  proportion  of  illiterates  that  the  whites 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      487 

do  and  about  four  times  the  proportion  of  illiterates 
found  among  Southern  whites,  and  these  ratios  between 
the  two  races  have  not  materially  changed  since  1890. 
Illiteracy  is  much  more  prevalent  in  the  country  dis 
tricts  than  it  is  in  the  cities.  About  half  of  the  Negroes 
living  outside  cities  having  at  least  25,000  inhabitants 
are  illiterate,  while  in  these  cities  less  than  one-third  are 
illiterate.  The  rapid  development  of  the  educational 
system  among  Negroes  in  the  South  has  left  clear  traces 
upon  the  proportion  of  illiterates  in  the  several  age 
classes.  The  highest  proportion  of  illiterates  is  found 
among  Negroes  at  least  sixty-five  years  of  age,  the  lowest 
among  Negroes  ten  to  fourteen  years  of  age.  The  differ 
ence  between  these  two  age  limits  is  rather  greater  than 
the  difference  between  city  and  country  Negroes,  the 
illiteracy  of  all  Negroes  over  sixty-five  being  rather 
greater  than  that  of  Negroes  in  country  districts,  and 
the  illiteracy  of  Negroes  between  ten  and  fourteen  years 
of  age  being  rather  less  than  that  of  all  Negroes  living 
in  cities  having  at  least  25,000  inhabitants.  If  the  per 
cent,  of  illiteracy  among  Negroes  should  continue  to 
dwindle  in  the  future  as  rapidly  as  it  did,  1890  to  1900, 
an  improbable  contingency,  Negro  illiteracy  would  dis 
appear  by  1940. 

No  noteworthy  results  appear  from  the  statistics  of 
marital  condition  among  the  Negroes.  They  correspond 
closely  with  the  statistics  for  Southern  whites,  the  main 
differences  being  that  the  race  has  a  very  much  larger 
proportion  of  widowed  and  divorced  persons  and  that  in 
the  last  ten  years  there  has  been  a  decline  in  the  proper- 


488      The  American  Race  Problem 

tion  of  adult  Negroes  who  were  married,  while  among 
Southern  whites  there  has  been  an  increase  in  the  pro 
portion  who  were  married.  Both  races  show  a  decided 
increase  in  early  marriages,  this  being  true  for  the 
country  as  a  whole  and  probably  the  result  of  the  high 
prosperity  which  prevailed  immediately  before  1900. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  suggestions  derived  from 
the  analysis  of  the  figures  for  the  Twelfth  Census  are 
found  in  the  statistics  of  occupations.  The  detailed 
results  of  these  must  be  regarded  as  open  to  some  ques 
tion  since  the  classification  of  occupations  is  perhaps  as 
difficult  a  problem  as  any  with  which  the  Census  Bureau 
has  to  grapple,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  figures  for  1890 
and  1900  may  not  be  strictly  comparable  in  all  cases. 
Still  certain  salient  results  appear  to  be  established. 

Among  all  the  Negroes  at  least  ten  years  of  age  about 
five-eighths,  62.2  per  cent.,  are  engaged  in  money-getting 
or  gainful  occupations.  The  corresponding  proportion 
among  Southern  whites  is  less  than  one-half  (46.9  per 
cent.).  The  difference  between  the  two  races  is  almost 
entirely  explained  by  the  greater  prevalence  of  money- 
getting  occupations  among  female  Negroes,  41.3  per 
cent,  of  the  Negro  females  and  only  n.8  per  cent,  of  the 
Southern  white  females  reporting  a  gainful  occupation. 
This  fact  accounts  for  about  three-fourths  of  the  entire 
difference  between  the  Negroes  and  the  Southern  whites. 
An  explanation  of  the  remaining  fourth  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  Negro  boys  go  to  work  earlier  and  Negro  men 
retire  later  than  white  men.  In  general  it  may  be  said 
that  the  lower  the  earning  capacity  of  a  productive  class 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      489 

the  greater  the  quantity  of  labour  required  for  its  sup 
port;  the  greater  the  prevalence,  therefore,  of  female 
labour,  of  child  labour,  and  of  the  labour  of  old  men. 
Part  of  this  greater  prevalence  of  child  labour  and  old 
man  labour  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Negroes  are  pre 
dominantly  engaged  in  agriculture  and  that  this  industry 
affords  greater  opportunities  than  most  others  for  the 
work  of  children  and  old  men.  Yet  this  fact  only 
partly  accounts  for  the  difference. 

The  most  important  specific  occupations  for  the 
Negroes  are  those  of  agricultural  labourers,  farmers, 
planters  and  overseers,  and  labourers  not  specified. 
These  three  classes  are  probably  more  numerous  than 
the  total  number  of  persons  engaged  in  agriculture,  for 
the  number  of  labourers  not  specified  who  were  engaged 
in  other  occupations  than  agriculture  is  probably 
greater  than  the  number  of  persons  engaged  in  agricul 
ture  and  not  enrolled  in  any  one  of  these  three  occupa 
tions.  The  total  number  of  Southern  Negroes,  with  the 
few  Indians  and  Mongolians  engaged  in  this  line  of 
industry  increased  between  1890  and  1900  by  30.4  per 
cent.,  the  Southern  whites  in  the  same  occupations 
increasing  in  the  same  period  by  43.5  per  cent.  As  a 
result  the  non-Caucasians  constituted  in  1890  44.4  per 
cent,  of  the  population  in  these  classes,  while  in  1900 
they  constituted  42.0  per  cent.  These  three  classes 
together  include  two-thirds  of  all  the  Negro  bread 
winners.  In  a  number  of  specific  occupations  involving 
some  degree  of  skill,  the  non-Caucasians  in  the  South 
constituted  a  somewhat  smaller  proportion  of  the  total 


The  American  Race  Problem 


number  of  labourers  in  the  South  in  1  900  than  they  did 
in  1890.  This  statement  holds  true  for  launderers  and 
laundresses,  carpenters,  barbers,  tobacco  and  cigar  fac 
tory  operatives,  and  engineers  and  firemen  (not  loco 
motive).  In  some  other  leading  occupations  the 
Negroes  were  more  numerously  represented  in  1  900  than 
in  1890.  These  include  in  the  professional  classes, 
teachers  and  clergymen,  and  in  the  skilled  labour 
classes,  miners  and  quarrymen  and  iron  and  steel 
workers. 

While  the  future  of  the  Negro  race  in  the  United 
States  seems  to  be  essentially  an  industrial  and  economic 
question,  turning  upon  their  efficiency  in  comparison 
with  classes  of  the  population  who  compete  with  them  in 
their  staple  occupations,  the  net  results  of  these  various 
and  complex  industrial  changes  can  perhaps  best  be 
measured  by  the  vital  statistics  of  the  race.  The  Census 
Bureau  has  no  direct  information  regarding  births  or 
marriages.  Its  information  regarding  deaths  is  con 
fined  to  the  Negro  population  living  in  the  registration 
area  and  amounting  to  between  one-seventh  and  one- 
eighth  (13.4  per  cent.)  of  the  entire  Negro  population  of 
the  country,  over  93  per  cent,  of  it  living  in  cities.  The 
death-rate  of  Negroes  in  the  registration  area  in  1900 
was  reported  as  30.2  per  thousand,  that  of  the  whites  in 
the  same  area  being  17.3.  But  of  the  Negroes  in  this 
area  the  majority  were  female  and  the  female  is  the 
healthier  sex.  They  were  also  predominantly  adult  and 
the  adult  years  are  the  healthier  ages.  To  allow  for 
these  differences  a  computation  has  been  made  to  ascer- 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro 


491 


tain  what  the  death-rate  for  the  Negroes  for  the  whole 
country  would  be,  if  the  death-rate  observed  in  the 
registration  area  for  each  sex  and  each  age  had  been 
true  of  the  Negroes  of  that  sex  and  age  in  the  country 
as  a  whole.  On  this  basis  the  estimated  Negro  death- 
rate  of  the  United  States  as  a  whole  is  34.2  instead  of 
30.2  per  thousand,  or  just  about  double  that  of 
the  whites. 

In  1890  the  death-rate  of  the  Negroes  in  the  registra 
tion  area  as  distinguished  from  the  Indians  and  Mongo 
lians  was  not  computed.  That  of  the  three  races 
combined,  nineteen-twentieths  being  Negroes,  was  in 
1890  29.9,  and  in  1900,  29.6  per  thousand,  a  decrease 
of  three  deaths  per  ten  thousand.  In  the  same 
area  the  death-rate  of  whites  in  1890  was  19.1  and 
in  1900,  17.3,  a  decrease  of  18  per  ten  thousand.  It 
is  uncertain  how  far  these  figures  may  be  accepted 
as  indicative  of  the  actual  changes.  They  are  sub 
mitted  not  as  entirely  trustworthy,  but  as  the  best 
information  available. 

Indirect  evidence  of  the  birth-rate  among  the  Negroes 
may  be  obtained  by  computing  the  number  of  children 
under  five  years  of  age  to  each  1,000  women  fifteen 
to  forty-four.  These  computations  show  a  very  marked 
decline  between  1880  and  1900  in  the  proportion  of 
Negro  children,  but  show  that  the  proportion  of 
children  at  the  present  time  is  greater  for  Negroes 
than  for  whites. 

But  when  the  country  is  considered  in  sections,  separ 
ating  the  population  of  the  South  from  that  of  the 


492      The  American  Race  Problem 

North,  different  results  appear.  Negroes,  as  a  whole, 
have  a  larger  proportion  of  living  children  than  whites, 
but  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  also  true  that 
Southern  Negroes  have  at  present  a  smaller  proportion 
of  living  children  than  Southern  whites,  and  Northern 
Negroes  have  a  smaller  proportion  of  living  children 
than  Northern  whites.  In  other  words,  the  difference  in 
the  proportion  of  children  stated  in  the  preceding  para 
graph,  is  fundamentally  a  geographical  or  sectional 
difference  and  not  a  racial  one.  Negroes  have  a  high 
proportion  of  children  not  because  they  are  Negroes,  but 
because  nine-tenths  of  them  live  in  the  South  and  show 
the  effect  of  influences  which  establish  a  high  birth-rate 
there.  The  South  at  the  present  time  is  increasing  in 
population  faster  than  the  North,  with  all  its  immigra 
tion,  largely  because  1,000  white  women  at  the  North, 
fifteen  to  forty-four  years  of  age,  could  show  at  the  cen 
sus  only  470  children  under  five  years  of  age,  while  at  the 
South  1,000  Negro  women  of  those  ages  could  show  621 
children,  and  1,000  white  women  633  children.  In  the 
Southern  states  prior  to  the  Civil  War  the  proportion  of 
children  under  five  years  of  age  to  1,000  women  of  child- 
bearing  age  was  about  the  same  for  the  two  races. 
The  immediate  result  of  the  Civil  War,  emancipation 
and  Reconstruction,  was  to  decrease  slightly  the  number 
of  white  children  and  increase  the  number  of  Negro 
children,  so  that  in  1880  for  1,000  women  of  the  specified 
race  and  of  child-bearing  age,  there  were  in  the  South 
82  more  Negro  than  white  children.  In  1890  the  differ 
ence  in  favour  of  the  Negro  race  had  sunk  to  17,  and  in 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro      493 

1 900  it  had  disappeared  and  been  replaced  by  an  excess 
of  12  white  children. 


The  American  Negro,  after  the  turmoil  of  Civil  War 
and  Reconstruction,  found  himself  thrown  on  his  own 
resources  as  he  had  never  been  before.  This  occurred 
at  the  beginning  of  a  period  of  rapid,  almost  revolu 
tionary,  industrial  change  in  the  South,  a  change  which 
did  not  at  first  affect  seriously  the  staple  crops  upon 
which  most  of  the  Negro's  labour  as  a  slave  had  been 
spent,  but  which  apparently  is  beginning  to  affect  even 
those.  In  seeking  other  avenues  of  self-support  than 
agriculture  and  domestic  service,  he  is  seriously  handi 
capped  by  unfamiliarity  with  such  work,  a  lack  of  native 
aptitude  for  it,  so  it  is  alleged,  absence  of  the  capital 
often  requisite,  and  a  preference  on  the  part  of  most  of 
the  whites,  even  when  other  things  are  equal,  as  they 
seldom  are,  to  employ  members  of  their  own  race.  In 
the  industrial  competition  thus  begun  the  Negro  seems 
during  the  last  decade  to  have  slightly  lost  ground  in 
most  of  those  higher  occupations  in  which  the  services 
are  rendered  largely  to  whites.  He  has  gained  in  the 
two  so-called  learned  professions  of  teachers  and  clergy 
men.  He  has  gained  in  the  two  skilled  occupations  of 
miner  or  quarryman  and  iron  or  steel  worker.  He  has 
gained  in  the  occupations,  somewhat  ill-defined  so  far  as 
the  degree  of  skill  required  is  indicated,  of  sawing-mill  or 
planing-mill  employee,  and  nurse  or  midwife.  He  has 
gained  in  the  class  of  servants  and  waiters.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  balance  sheet  he  has  lost  ground  in  the 


494 


The  American  Race  Problem 


South  as  a  whole  in  the  following  skilled  occupations: 
carpenter,  barber,  tobacco  and  cigar  factory  operative, 
fisherman,  engineer  or  fireman  (not  locomotive)  and 
probably  blacksmith.  He  has  lost  ground  also  in  the 
following  industries  in  which  the  degree  of  skill  implied 
seems  somewhat  uncertain:  laundry  work,  hackman 
or  teamster,  steam  railroad  employee,  housekeeper  or 
steward.  The  balance  seems  not  favorable.  It  sug 
gests  that  in  the  competition  with  white  labour  to  which 
the  Negro  is  being  subjected  he  has  not  quite  held 
his  own. 

These  figures  of  occupations  seem  to  me  to  furnish 
the  best  statistical  clue  yet  obtained  for  an  understand 
ing  of  the  industrial  and  social  changes  affecting  this 
question  in  the  South.  My  interpretation  of  their  mean 
ing  might  be  criticised  on  the  ground  that  when  the 
Negroes  are  increasing  more  slowly  than  the  whites,  as 
they  are  at  present  in  the  South,  it  should  not  be 
expected  that  they  would  increase  as  fast  as  whites  in 
the  skilled  occupations.  This  objection  seems  to  me  to 
invert  the  true  order  of  causation,  to  put  the  cart  before 
the  horse.  Should  we  not  rather  say  that  Southern 
Negroes  are  increasing  at  the  present  time  only  two- 
thirds  as  fast  as  Southern  whites,  while  from  1800  to  1840 
they  increased  faster  and  from  1840  to  1880  nearly  as 
fast,  because  they  are  not  succeeding  in  entering  new 
occupations  or  prospering  as  well  in  their  old  as  the  com 
peting  race  is  doing? 

If  this  view  of  the  process  is  correct,  then  one  may  add 
in  closing  that,  as  these  occupation  figures  throw  much 


Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro     495 

light  upon  the  causes,  so  the  figures  of  an  almost  station 
ary  death-rate  for  Negroes  compared  with  a  rapidly 
decreasing  death-rate  for  whites,  and  an  apparently 
declining  birth-rate  for  Negroes  compared  with  an 
actually  increasing  birth-rate  for  Southern  whites,  are 
the  best  statistical  keys  to  its  effects. 


Ill 

THE  PROBABLE  INCREASE  OF  THE  NEGRO  RACE  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES  * 

IN  THE  century-long  problem  of  the  adjustment  of 
relations  between  whites  and  Negroes  in  the  United 
States  the  probabilities  regarding  the  increase  of  each 
race  constitute  an  important  element.  Those  relations 
are  influenced  in  manifold  ways  by  the  numerical  propor 
tion  of  the  races  in  the  country  as  a  whole,  and  in  its  vari 
ous  divisions.  Consequently  the  question  of  the  relative 
growth  of  the  two  races  in  the  near  future  is  one  of  much 
importance.  The  factors  controlling  it  are  not  well 
enough  known  to  make  any  accurate  forecast  possible, 
yet  perhaps  we  are  now  in  a  position  to  anticipate  the 
course  of  events  in  this  field  during  the  century  just 
beginning,  with  closer  truth  than  has  yet  been  done. 

A  starting-point  may  be  found  in  certain  opinions  that 
have  been  expressed  and  controverted  since  the  Civil 
War.  In  articles  published  in  1883  and  1884,  and  based 
mainly  upon  the  census  figures  for  1870  and  i88o,"j" 
Professor  E.  W.  Gilliam  estimated  the  probable  Negro 
population  of  the  Southern  states  alone  in  1980  at 
192,000,000  (or  about  200,000,000  in  the  entire  country). 

*  This  paper  gives  the  substance  of  a  lecture  delivered  at  Harvard  University 
in  April,  1905. — From  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  August,  1905. 

t  Popular  Science  Monthly,    Vol.  XXII,  pp.  433-444,  and  North  American 
Rtview,  Vol.  CXXXIX,  pp.  417-430. 

496 


The  Probable  Increase  497 

He  estimated  the  probable  number  of  whites  in  the 
country  in  1985  at  336,000,000.  In  other  words,  he 
predicted  that  before  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century 
the  Negro  race  would  amount  to  three-eighths  of  the 
total  population  of  the  United  States.  The  errors  in  the 
bases  on  which  this  conclusion  was  rested,  and  the 
fallacies  in  the  arguments  by  which  it  was  supported, 
have  been  effectively  exposed  *  and  do  not  need  to  be 
restated. 

In  a  book  published  in  1899  Mr.  Booker  T.  Washing 
ton  wrote:  "I  think  I  am  pretty  safe  in  predicting  that 
the  census  to  be  taken  in  1900  will  show  that  there  are 
not  far  from  ten  millions  of  people  of  African  descent  in 
the  United  States,  "f  The  number  reported  by  the 
Twelfth  Census  fell  short  of  this  predicted  number  by 
more  than  1,150,000,  and,  even  if  those  enumerated  by 
the  War  Department  in  Porto  Rico  and  Cuba  are 
included,  a  total  of  only  about  9,700,000  is  reached.  Mr. 
Washington  added:  "It  is  my  opinion  that  the  rate  of 
increase  in  the  future  will  be  still  greater  than  it  has 
been  from  the  close  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  up  to  the 
present  time."  J  The  evidence  against  this  opinion  will 
be  presented  later.  Neither  in  that  book  nor,  so  far  as  I 
know,  elsewhere,  does  he  attempt  an  estimate  for  the 
remoter  future. 

In  a  book  published  in  1 904  Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page 
wrote:  "Unless  conditions  change,  it  is  possible  that 

*  Notably  by  Henry  Gannett,  in  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Vol.  XXVII.  pp. 
145-150. 

t  "The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  5. 
J  Idem,  pp.  6,  7. 


498      The  American  Race  Problem 

before  the  end  of  the  century  there  may  be  between 
sixty  and  eighty  millions  of  Negroes  in  this  country."  * 
And  a  little  further  on  he  adds:  "  It  is  true  that  prognos 
tications  of  increase  in  a  population  often  fail,  but  judg 
ing  the  future  by  the  past  and  taking  into  account  known 
racial  characteristics,  it  would  appear  that  the  number 
thus  prophesied  will,  in  all  human  probability,  exist  in 
the  United  States  by  the  end  of  the  century."  f 

The  foregoing  are  all  the  estimates  regarding  the  prob 
able  future  increase  of  the  Negro  race  in  the  United 
States  which  I  have  met  with  in  my  reading.  Unsatis 
factory  as  the  evidence  is,  it  points  to  a  conclusion 
widely  different  from  any  of  these.  Disregarding  the 
figures  for  Porto  Rico,  Hawaii,  and  Alaska,  the  table  on 
the  next  page  shows  the  Negro  population  of  the  United 
States  at  each  of  the  twelve  censuses,  and  the  amount, 
rate  and  of  increase  by  ten  and  twenty  year  periods. 

This  table  shows  that  during  the  nineteenth  century 
ttie  Negroes  of  the  United  States  increased,  as  a  rule,  by 
greater  and  greater  amounts,  but  at  a  less  and  less  rate. 
If  attention  is  confined  to  the  five  twenty-year  periods 
of  the  century,  this  rule  is  without  a  single  exception. 
But,  among  the  decennial  increases,  that  from  1830  to 
1840  was  less  than  that  from  1820  to  1830,  which  was 
probably  due  to  the  emigration  of  many  slaveholders 
with  their  slaves  from  the  United  States  to  Texas 
between  1830  and  1840.  That  from  1860  to  1870  was 
not  much  above  half  that  from  1850  to  1860,  for  which 


*  "The  Negro:     The  Southerner's  Problem,"  p.  a88, 
t  Idem,  p.  289, 


The  Probable  Increase 


499 


TABLE  I.     Negro  population  and  amount  and  rate  of 
increase  for  Continental   United  States  by  ten  and 
twenty  year  periods:     1790  to   1900.*       (Unit  = 
10,000.) 


Date  of  Census. 

Negro  pop 
ulation. 

Increase  during 
preceding 

Per  cent,  of  increase 
during  preceding 

10  years. 

20  years. 

10  years. 

20  years. 

76.8 
62.2 
54-6 
48.2 
34-2 

76 
zoo 

138 

177 
233 
a87 
364 
444 
488 
658 
748 
883 

24 
38 
39 
56 
54 
77 
80 
44 
170 
90 
135 

77 
no 
157 
214 
225 

32-3 
37-5 
28.6 
31-4 
23-4 
26.6 

22.1 
9-9 
34-9 
13-5 

18.0 

1800               .    .    . 

1810.          

1820  

1830  

1840  

1850  

1860 

1870 

1880 

1890.          

I  goo  

the  Civil  War  and  the  serious  omissions  at  the  census  of 
1870  must  be  held  jointly  responsible;  and  that  from 
1880  to  1890  was  only  about  half  the  apparent  increase 
from  1870  to  1880.  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that 
the  census  of  1890,  like  that  of  1870  but  to  a  much  less 
degree,  suffered  from  omissions  in  the  South  and  espe 
cially  among  the  Negroes.  To  give  the  reasons  at  length 
would  require  a  separate  article.  The  most  important 
ones  are  suggested  by  the  series  in  the  foregoing  table, 
and  are  strengthened  when  the  increase  of  Negroes  is 
compared  with  that  of  Southern  whites  and  the  rates  of 

*  The  exact  census  figures  on  which  the  per  cents,  are  based  and  some  minor 
explanations,  unimportant  for  present  purposes,  will  be  found  in  Twelfth  Census 
"Supplementary  Analysis  and  Derivative  Tables,"  p.  293, 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


OF 


500      The  American  Race  Problem 

increase  for  the  two  races  in  city  and  country  are  sep 
arately  computed. 

For  present  purposes  I  have  sought  to  correct  Table  I. 
by  inserting  estimates  in  place  of  the  census  figures  of 
1870  and  1890.  For  1870  I  have  taken  the  geometric 
mean  of  the  figures  for  1860  and  1880.  Normally,  but 
for  the  Civil  War,  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  later  decade 
would  probably  have  been  less  than  in  the  earlier.  I 
assume,  therefore,  that  the  effect  of  the  war  was  to  con 
centrate  all  the  slight  reduction  in  the  rate  of  increase 
which  occurred  between  1860  and  1880,  as  compared 
with  the  rate  between  1850  and  1860,  in  the  decade  1860 
to  1870,  and  make  the  rates  in  the  decades  1860  to  1870 
and  1870  to  1880  the  same.  This  assumption  raises  the 
true  number  of  Negroes  in  the  United  States  in  1870 
from  4,880,000  to  5,405,000,  and  makes  the  omissions 
of  Negroes  in  that  census  525,000.  I  believe  the  true 
number  of  Negroes  in  1870  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
5,400,000,  and  probably  less  rather  than  greater.  If  the 
same  method  of  estimation  be  employed  to  determine 
the  probable  Negro  population  of  the  United  States  in 
1890,  the  result  is  7,622,000  instead  of  7,480,000,  indi 
cating  the  omission  of  142,000  Negroes  by  the  Eleventh 
Census.  But  I  see  no  reason,  except  the  census  figures, 
for  believing  that  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  Negroes, 
which  fell  almost  steadily  between  1800  and  1890,  was  as 
high  between  1890  and  1900  as  in  the  preceding  decade. 
If  any  assumption  at  all  is  admissible,  I  believe  it  should 
be  the  assumption  of  a  decreasing  rate  and  a  constant 
amount  of  increase;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  true 


The  Probable  Increase 


figures  of  1880,  1890,  and  1900  constitute  an  arithmetical 
rather  than  a  geometrical  progression.  On  this  assump 
tion  the  number  of  Negroes  in  the  United  States  in  1890 
was  7,705,000  instead  of  7,480,000,  and  the  omissions  of 
Negroes  at  the  eleventh  census  were  225,000.  At  any 
rate,  these  assumptions  are  plausible,  and  furnish  a  more 
uniform  series  than  the  unadjusted  figures  of  the  census 
upon  which  to  attempt  a  forecast  of  the  future. 
The  revised  table  is  as  follows : 

TABLE  II.  Negro  population  and  amount  and  rate  of 
increase  for  Continental  United  States  by  ten  and 
twenty  year  periods:  1790/0  1900  (Adjusted  -figures 
indicated  by  asterisks',  unit  i=  10,000.) 


Date  of  Census. 

Negro 
Pop 
ulation. 

Increase  during 
preceding 

Per  cent,  of  increase 
during  preceding 

10  years. 

20  years. 

10  years. 

20  years. 

76 
too 

138 

177 
233 

287 
364 

444 
54i* 
658 
770* 
883 

24 

38 
39 
56 
54 
77 
80 
97* 
117* 

112* 

H3* 

77 
no 
157 
214 
225 

32.3 
37-5 
28.6 
31-4 
23-4 
26.6 

22.  I 

21.7* 
21.7* 
17.0* 

14.7* 

76.8 

62.2 
54-6 
48.  a 
34-2 

1810  

1820  

1830 

1840 

1850  

1860  

1870  

1880 

The  last  columns  of  Tables  I.  and  II.  show  that  the 
rate  of  increase  of  Negroes  declined  throughout  the 
nineteenth  century,  that  between  1880  and  1900  it  was 
less  than  half  of  what  it  was  between  1800  and  1820 


502     The  American  Race  Problem 

and  less  than  two-thirds  of  what  it  was  between  1840 
and  1860.  It  shows,  therefore,  that,  if  the  future  may 
be  judged  by  the  past,  there  is  no  warrant  for  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Washington,  "that  the  rate  of  increase  in 
the  future  will  be  still  greater  than  it  has  been." 

The  estimate  of  Mr.  Page,  that  the  year  2000  A.D.  "will 
in  all  human  probability"  see  from  60,000,000  to 
80,000,000  Negroes  living  in  the  United  States,  appears 
to  be  reached  by  projecting  into  the  future  the  rate  of 
increase  which  prevailed  between  1860  and  1880.  If 
that  rate  were  to  persist  throughout  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  there  would  be  63,000,000  Negroes  in  the  United 
States  in  2000  A.  D.  If  the  rate  shown  by  Table  I.  for 
the  decade  1890  to  1900  should  persist,  there  would  be 
46,000,000  Negroes  in  the  United  States  in  2000  A.D. 
If  the  rate  shown  by  both  tables  for  the  twenty  years, 
1880  to  1900,  should  persist,  there  would  be  38,000,000 
Negroes  in  the  United  States  in  2000  A.D.  If  the  rate 
shown  by  Table  II.  for  1890  to  1900  should  persist,  there 
would  be  about  35,000,000  Negroes  in  the  United  States 
in  2000  A.D.  And,  finally,  if  the  rate  shown  in  Table  I. 
for  1880  to  1890  should  persist,  there  would  then  be 
about  31,500,000  Negroes. 

If  it  were  admissible  to  assume  that  any  rate  of  in 
crease  would  persist  through  the  twentieth  century,  it 
would  be  best  to  accept  that  for  the  twenty  years  between 
1880  and  1900,  because  it  is  based  on  the  longer  period 
and  involves  no  correction  of  census  figures.  But  the 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  what  is  known 
about  the  increase  of  population  concur  in  testifying 


The  Probable  Increase  503 

that  the  rate  of  increase  is  likely  to  dwindle,  and  that 
38,000,000  Negroes  in  Continental  United  States  in  2000 
A.D.  is  much  too  large  an  estimate.  Emancipation 
wrought  so  radical  a  change  in  the  economic  condition 
of  the  Negro  race  that  its  increase  before  1860  affords 
almost  no  clue  to  its  probable  increase  in  the  future. 
The  period  since  1860  is  too  short,  and  the  returns  are 
affected  by  too  large  errors,  admitted  or  suspected,  to 
furnish  much  basis  for  a  forecast.  Yet,  if  we  take  as  our 
base  the  rate  of  increase  1880  to  1900 — -namely,  34.2 
per  cent. — and  assume  that  in  each  score  of  years  during 
the  twentieth  century  the  increase  of  the  Negroes  will 
be  less  by  4  per  cent,  than  in  the  preceding  score  of 
years — and  this  slackening  is  only  about  one-third  of 
that  which  has  taken  place  since  1860  among  the 
Negroes,  and  one-half  of  that  among  the  whites — the  per 
cents,  of  increase  during  the  century  just  beginning  will 
be  as  follows: — 

1900-1920  .........  30.2 

1920-1940  .........  26.2 

1940-1960  .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .22.2 

1960-1980  .........  18.2 

1980-2000  .........  14.2 

The  Negro  population  at  the  end  of  the  present  cen 
tury  will  then  be  less  than  24,000,000.  On  the  whole,  I 
am  disposed  to  believe  that  this  assumption  is  as  favour 
able  to  the  Negro  race  as  the  facts  warrant,  that 
25,000,000  is  the  maximum  limit  of  the  probable  Negro 
population  of  this  country  a  century  hence,  and  that 
it  may  fall  several  millions  short  of  that  figure. 

Whether  this  opinion — for  it  is  hardly  more  than 


504     The  American  Race  Problem 

that — does  or  does  not  find  acceptance,  there  is  no  ques 
tioning  the  testimony  of  the  figures  that  the  rate  of 
increase  of  Negroes  declined  steadily  throughout  the 
nineteenth  century,  and,  if  we  reject  or  disregard  the 
census  figures  of  1870  and  1890,  at  no  time  so  rapidly  as 
between  1860  and  1900.  This  is  made  most  obvious, 
perhaps,  by  comparing  the  rate  of  increase  at  each 
twenty-year  period  subsequent  to  1820  with  that  of  the 
preceding  period  treated  as  100  per  cent.  The  rate  of 
increase  1820  to  1840  was  81.0  per  cent,  of  that  1800  to 
1820;  the  rate  of  increase  1840  to  1860  was  87.8  per  cent, 
of  that  1820  to  1840;  the  rate  of  increase  1860  to  1880 
was  88.3  per  cent,  of  that  1840  to  1860;  but  the  rate  of 
increase  1880  to  1900  was  only  71.0  per  cent,  of  that  1860 
to  1880. 

The  rapid  decline  of  white  increase  has  been  men 
tioned,  and  it  might  be  thought  that  in  this  checking  of 
Negro  increase  we  have  to  do,  not  with  a  racial  problem 
but  with  a  general  problem  of  American  population. 
This  is  a  superficial  view.  It  is  true  that  the  whites  in 
the  country  as  a  whole,  in  spite  of  the  swarms  of  immi 
grants  who  come  to  swell  their  numbers,  are  increasing 
at  a  slackening  rate.  But  nearly  nine-tenths  of  the 
Negroes  live  in  the  Southern  states,  a  region  to  which 
a  small  and  dwindling  proportion  of  our  foreign-born 
population  goes,  and  yet  in  the  South  the  white  popu 
lation  is  growing  with  augmented  rapidity.  The 
evidence  for  this  surprising  fact  has  been  presented  in 
the  "Supplementary  Analysis"  of  the  Twelfth  Census* 

*  See  p.  203. 


The  Probable  Increase  505 

published  in  1 906,  and  need  not  be  repeated.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that,  if  each  of  the  two  races  in  the  South  should  con 
tinue  throughout  the  present  century  to  increase  at  the 
rate  that  characterised  it  between  1880  and  1900,  there 
would  be  in  the  South  in  2000  A.D.  about  33,000,000 
Negroes  and  155,000,000  whites,  and  the  Negroes  would 
constitute  17.6  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  South 
ern  states,  in  which  they  now  constitute  32.4  per  cent. 
Doubtless  each  of  the  above  figures  is  much  too  large; 
but,  if  the  checking  of  growth  which  will  appear  in  each 
race  shall  affect  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  the  ratio 
of  their  increase  what  it  has  been  for  twenty  years  — 
and  I  think  this  also  is  an  assumption  as  favourable  to 
the  Negro  as  the  facts  will  warrant  — then  the  ratio 
of  the  above  figures  will  be  correct,  and  we  may  expect 
that  the  Negroes,  who  in  1800  were  35.0  per  cent,  of  the 
population  of  the  Southern  states,  who  in  1840,  when 
they  were  relatively  most  numerous,  were  38.0  per  cent., 
and  who  in  1900  had  receded  to  32.4  per  cent.,  will 
continue  to  recede,  and  in  2000  A.D.  are  likely  to  be  not 
more  than  17.6  per  cent,  of  the  Southern  population. 

Whether  these  forecasts  have  any  value  depends 
mainly  upon  whether  the  causes  of  the  different  rates 
of  growth  of  the  two  races  at  the  South  can  be  ascer 
tained,  and  a  judgment  formed  upon  the  question 
whether  those  causes  are  likely  to  persist  and  whether 
counteracting  influences  are  likely  to  arise.  This  raises 
the  question,  what  are  the  causes  of  the  slackening  rate 
of  growth  among  Southern  Negroes?  That  race,  unlike 
the  whites,  receives  practically  no  reinforcement  from 


506      The  American  Race  Problem 

immigration.  Only  about  20,000  foreign-born  Negroes 
were  enumerated  in  1900,  or  about  i  in  500  of  the  Negro 
population  of  the  United  States.  For  this  reason  the 
increase  of  Negroes  must  be  controlled  by  the  balance 
of  births  and  deaths. 

Regarding  the  birth-rate  of  the  Southern  Negroes 
we  have  no  direct  information.  In  default  of  that  the 
best  available  substitute  is  to  compute  the  number  of 
children  under  five  years  of  age  to  each  1,000  women  of 
child-bearing  age,  namely,  fifteen  to  forty-nine  or  fifteen 
to  forty -four  years  of  age.  I  reject  the  figures  of  the 
censuses  of  1870  and  1890,  both  because  of  the  acknowl 
edged  errors  in  the  former  and  the  suspected  ones  in  the 
latter,  and  because  in  1890  the  form  of  the  age  question 
was  different  from  that  employed  at  other  censuses. 
For  the  sake  of  comparison  the  figures  for  Southern 
whites  also  are  introduced: 

TABLE  III.  Children  under  5  years  of  age  to  1,000 
women,  15  to  49  years  of  age,  in  the  South  Atlantic 
and  South  Central  States. 

Date  of  census  Non-Caucasians*  Whites 

1850 705      695 

1860 688      682 

1880 737      656 

1900 577     58i 

These  figures  show  that  before  the  war  the  proportion 

*  "Non-Caucasians"  is  preferred  to  the  ambiguous  "coloured,"  which  means 
sometimes  Negroes,  sometimes  Negroes,  Indians,  and  Mongolians,  and  some 
times  mulattoes.  In  every  case  in  which  non-Caucasian  is  used  Negro  might 
be  substituted  for  it  without  material  inaccuracy,  and  for  this  reason  I  have 
occasionally,  for  the  sake  of  variety  or  simplicity,  used  Negro  when  non-Cau 
casian  would  be  more  exact. 


The  Probable  Increase          507 

of  children  to  potential  mothers  was  almost  the 
same  among  Southern  Negroes  and  Southern  whites. 
They  show  that  the  proportion  among  Negroes  was 
higher  in  1880  than  in  1850  or  1860,  suggesting  that  the 
Negro  birth-rate  immediately  after  emancipation  and 
the  reestablishment  of  orderly  government  was  higher 
than  toward  the  end  of  the  slavery  regime.  They 
indicate,  also,  a  notable  and  surprising  fall  in  the  birth 
rate  between  1880  and  1900.  During  the  same  period 
the  proportion  of  children  among  Southern  whites 
fell  steadily  but  more  slowly,  the  total  decline  for 
the  fifty-year  period  being  128  children  for  1,000  non- 
Caucasian  women  and  114  children  for  1,000  white 
women.  As  a  result  the  proportion  of  white  children 
in  the  South  in  1900,  for  the  first  time,  was  greater 
than  the  proportion  of  Negro  children.  Still  more 
remarkable  is  the  fact  that  during  the  last  twenty 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  decline  in  the  pro 
portion  of  Southern  Negro  children  was  160  and  that 
in  the  proportion  of  Southern  white  children  only  75. 
The  following  table  shows  the  states  in  which  the  pro 
portion  of  children  is  highest  or  lowest,  and  those  in 
which  the  decline  has  been  greatest.  For  the  sake  of 
comparison  the  figures  for  whites  are  added.*  It  will 
be  noticed  that  the  child-bearing  age  in  this  table  has 
been  defined  a  little  more  exactly  than  was  possible 
from  the  census  data  of  1850  and  1860,  as  15  to  44 
years  of  age. 


*  Fuller    figures   on   the   subject   will   be  found   in    the    "  Supplementary 
Analysis"  of  the  Twelfth  Census,  pp.  241,  424,427-429. 


508     The  American  Race  Problem 


TABLE  IV.  Children  under  five  years  of  age  to  1,000 
women,  15  to  44  years  of  age,  by  race  for  the  South 
Atlantic  and  South  Central  States:  1880  and  1900. 


Division. 

Non- 
Caucasians. 

Whites. 

Decrease  in 
twenty  years  for 

1880. 

1900. 

1880. 

666 
623 
5i6 
539 
420 
657 
757 
7i3 
703 
7U 
721 
7i8 
749 
712 
681 
721 
734 
747 
813 
680 
845 
? 
? 
853 

1900. 

Non- 
Cauca 
sians. 

Whites 

South  Atlantic     . 

787 
695 
632 
614 
428 
762 
699 
833 
838 
867 
818 
752 
799 
785 
664 
770 
792 
843 
824 
773 
863 
? 
? 
869 

630 
525 
499 
483 
254 
594 
514 
674 
674 
712 
663 
599 
612 
598 
454 
S44 
624 
652 
633 
620 
611 
782 
631 
642 

595 
542 
446 
461 
302 
591 
649 
653 
677 
630 
642 
639 
659 
630 
601 
615 
680 
675 
692 
652 
689 
73i 
716 
698 

157 
170 
133 
131 
174 
168 
185 
159 
164 
155 
155 
153 
187 
187 

210 
226 

168 
191 
191 
153 
252 

227 

7i 
81 
70 
78 
118 
66 
108 
60 
26 
84 
79 
79 
90 
82 
80 
106 
54 
72 

121 

28 
156 

155 

Northern  South  Atlantic 
Delaware  

Maryland.  .      .    . 

District  of  Columbia.  .  . 
Virginia  
West  Virginia  

Southern  South  Atlantic 

South  Carolina  
Georgia 

Florida 

South  Central      

Eastern  South  Central.  .  . 
Kentucky  

Tennessee  

Alabama  

Mississippi  
Western  South  Central  .  . 
Louisiana  

Indian  Territory 

Oklahoma  

Texas  .    . 

Table  IV.  shows  that  in  every  Southern  state  the 
decline  in  the  proportion  of  Negro  children  between 
1880  and  1900  was  much  greater  than  the  decline  in 
the  proportion  of  white  children,  and  that  with  both 
races  the  proportion  was  smallest  in  the  border  states, 
and  reached  a  very  marked  minimum  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  The  last  fact  suggests  that  the  proportion 


The  Probable  Increase 


509 


of  Negro  children  may  be  very  small  in  other  cities. 
We  have  figures  on  this  only  for  1890  and  1900.  They 
show  that  in  the  entire  country,  outside  the  large  cities, 
the  proportion  of  Negro  children  to  1,000  women  fell 
from  672  in  1890  to  651  in  1900,  or  21.  But  the  pro 
portion  in  the  cities  was  305  in  1890  and  260  in  1900, 
a  decrease  of  45.  These  figures  show  that  the  propor 
tion  of  Negro  children  in  cities  is  about  two-fifths  of 
the  proportion  in  country  districts,  and  has  decreased 
in  cities  with  more  than  twice  the  rapidity  with  which 
it  has  decreased  in  country  districts.  The  following 
figures  compare  the  proportion  and  decrease  of  Negro 
children  in  Southern  cities  and  country  districts  with 
the  proportion  and  decrease  of  white  children: 

TABLE  V.  Children  under  five  years  of  age  to  1,000 
women,  15  to  44  years  of  age.  For  the  South  Atlantic 
and  South  Central  States:  1890  and  1900. 


Division. 

In  cities  of  25,000. 

In  rest  of  area. 

Non- 
Caucasian. 

White. 

Non- 
Caucasian. 

White. 

1890. 

1900. 

1890. 

1900. 

1890. 

1900. 

1890. 

1900. 

641 
693 

South  Atlantic 
South  Central 

3ii 
33i 

269 
274 

385 
402 

365 
384 

685 
690 

687 
653 

627 
693 

Negro  children  are  much  less  numerous  than  white 
children  in  the  cities  of  both  divisions.  They  are  less 
numerous  in  the  country  districts  of  the  South  Central 
division,  but  more  numerous  in  the  country  districts 
of  the  South  Atlantic.  In  the  large  cities  of  the  South 


510     The  American  Race  Problem 

Atlantic  division  the  decrease  of  Negro  children,  1890 
to  1900,  was  42  per  1,000  women,  that  of  white  children 
only  20.  In  the  large  cities  of  the  South  Central  division 
the  decrease  of  Negro  children  was  57  per  1,000  women, 
that  of  white  children  only  18.  Outside  of  these  cities 
in  the  South  Central  division  the  decrease  of  Negro 
children  was  37  to  1,000  women,  and  of  white  children 
only  i.  Outside  of  those  cities  in  the  South  Atlantic 
division  the  increase  of  Negro  children  was  2  to  1,000 
women,  and  of  white  children  the  increase  was  14.  The 
growth  of  cities  in  the  South  and  the  effect  of  city  life 
upon  the  birth-rate  are  thus  proved  to  be  potent  in 
fluences,  but  not  the  only  influences,  producing  the 
rapid  decrease  of  the  Negro  birth-rate. 

Immigration  of  whites  into  the  South  might  tend  to 
maintain  the  birth-rate  and  the  rate  of  increase  of 
whites,  and  thus  account  for  the  growing  disparity 
between  the  figures  for  the  two  races.  This  immigration 
is  of  two  sorts,  immigration  of  foreign-born  whites 
and  immigration  of  whites  born  in  other  parts  of  the 
United  States.  The  number  of  foreign-born  whites 
in  the  Southern  states,  excluding  Oklahoma  and  Indian 
Territory,  was  516,000  in  1890  and  542,000  in  1900,  an 
increase  of  only  5.0  per  cent.,  while  the  increase  in  the 
country  as  a  whole  was  12.0  per  cent.  Of  the  total  white 
population  of  the  Southern  states  in  1890  3.9  per  cent, 
and  in  1900  3.4  per  cent,  were  of  foreign  birth.  Im 
migration  of  foreign-born  whites  cannot  be  a  very 
potent  influence  in  maintaining  the  birth-rate  or  the 
rate  of  increase  of  Southern  whites. 


The  Probable  Increase          511 

The  immigration  of  foreign-born  whites  to  the 
Southern  states  is  not  offset  by  an  appreciable  amount 
of  emigration  of  white  natives  of  the  South  to  foreign 
countries.  But  on  the  part  of  native  whites  the  currents 
of  migration  between  the  Southern  states  and  the  rest 
of  the  country  flow  in  both  directions,  and  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  the  net  result  or  balance.  In  doing  so  it 
is  best  to  exclude  Oklahoma  and  Indian  Territory 
from  the  Southern  states.  In  1890  there  were  1,038,000 
white  natives  of  the  Southern  states  (excluding  Okla 
homa  and  Indian  Territory)  living  in  other  parts  of 
the  country:  in  1900  the  number  had  risen  to  1,116,000. 
To  offset  this  current  there  were,  in  1890,  582,000  white 
natives  of  the  North  and  West  living  in  the  South  (still 
excluding  Oklahoma  and  Indian  Territory),  and  in 
1900  there  were  725,000.  The  native  white  population 
of  the  Southern  states  has  suffered  a  net  loss  by  inter 
change  with  other  parts  of  the  country,  but  that  loss 
is  a  decreasing  one.  In  1890  it  was  456,000  and  in 
1900  it  was  391,000. 

As  the  Negroes  in  the  South  receive  very  few  recruits 
from  foreign  countries,  so,  also,  they  receive  very  few 
recruits  from  the  North  and  West.  In  studying  these 
currents  of  migration  it  is  necessary  to  include  with 
the  Negroes  the  native  Indians  and  Mongolians,  these 
classes  not  having  been  distinguished  from  the  Negroes 
for  the  birthplace  tables  at  the  census  of  1890.  They 
were  so  few  relatively  as  not  to  distort  the  figures.  In 
1890  there  were  241,000  non-Caucasian  natives  of  the 
South  living  in  the  North  and  West,  in  1900  there  were 


512      The  American  Race  Problem 

349,000.  In  1890  there  were  22,400  non-Caucasian 
natives  of  the  North  and  West  living  in  the  South,  in 
1900  there  were  26,500.  In  1890  the  net  loss  of  Southern 
Negroes  by  emigration  to  other  parts  of  the  country  was 
218,000,  in  1900  it  was  323,000.  During  the  decade  1890 
to  1900  the  net  loss  of  Southern  native  whites  by  emi 
gration  to  other  parts  of  the  country  decreased  65,000, 
and  the  net  loss  of  Southern  Negroes  increased  105,000. 
The  net  loss  of  Southern  native  whites  by  emigration 
to  each  10,000  native  whites  residing  in  the  South  was 
365  in  1890  and  255  in  1900.  Corresponding  figures 
for  the  non-Caucasians  in  the  South  were  324  in  1890 
and  410  in  1900.  The  relative  loss  of  the  Negroes 
in  1890  was  less  than  that  of  the  whites,  but  in  1900 
it  was  greater  by  three-fifths. 

The  evidence  thus  far  has  indicated  two  of  the  in 
fluences  at  work  in  reducing  the  proportion  of  children, 
and  probably  the  birth-rate,  of  Southern  Negroes  much 
more  rapidly  than  of  Southern  whites.  The  first  is 
the  growth  of  cities,  especially  of  Southern  cities,  and 
the  powerful  and  increasing  influence  they  exercise 
upon  their  residents,  especially  their  Negro  residents, 
in  depressing  the  birth-rate.  The  second  is  the  decreas 
ing  net  loss  of  Southern  whites  and  the  increasing  net 
loss  of  Southern  Negroes  by  the  currents  of  migration 
between  the  South  and  the  North  and  West.  So  far 
as  one  can  judge,  both  of  these  influences  are  likely 
to  persist,  and  even  to  become  more  potent.  Indeed, 
they  bid  fair  to  be  reinforced  by  a  third,  which  has 
not  yet  produced  a  noteworthy  effect  upon  the  popula- 


The  Probable  Increase          513 

tion  of  the  South  —  the  increased  influx  into  the  South 
of  white  immigrants  from  Europe,  especially  from 
Southern  Europe.  The  evidence  in  hand,  therefore, 
meagre  as  it  is,  points  to  a  continuance  of  a  proportion 
of  children  among  Southern  Negroes  smaller  than  among 
Southern  whites  —  a  relation  which  was  first  mani 
fested  in  1 900  —  and  probably  to  an  increasing  difference 
in  this  respect  between  the  two  races. 

The  increase  of  Negro  population  in  the  United 
States  is  the  result,  as  already  stated,  of  the  balance 
between  births  and  deaths.  It  has  been  shown  that 
the  proportion  of  Negro  children  is  rapidly  decreasing. 
But,  if  the  proportion  of  them  who  die  —  or,  in  other 
words,  the  death-rate  —  is  decreasing  as  fast  or  faster, 
the  rate  of  increase  might  continue  at  its  present  height 
or  even  rise.  It  is  important,  therefore,  to  ascertain 
how  the  death-rate  of  the  Negroes  is  changing.  This 
rate  is  known  only  for  the  registration  area,  as  it  is 
called;  that  is,  for  those  states  and  cities  in  which  the 
local  death  records  are  believed  to  be  accurate  enough 
to  deserve  consideration.  Probably  some  omissions 
of  deaths  occur  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  registration 
area.  Probably  these  omissions  are  more  numerous 
in  the  South  than  in  the  North,  and  in  any  given  place 
perhaps  more  numerous  among  the  Negroes  than  among 
the  whites.  Still,  these  figures  for  deaths  in  the  regis 
tration  area  are  the  best  we  have.  They  are  based 
upon  a  large  non-Caucasian  population,  950,000  in 
1890  and  1,250,000  in  1900;  and  the  evidence  they 
present,  although  not  beyond  challenge,  is  very  weighty. 


514      The  American  Race  Problem 

Among  1,000  non-Caucasians  in  the  registration  area 
in  1890  there  were  29.9  deaths  and  in  1900  29.6  deaths. 
These  figures  point  to  a  very  high  death-rate  and  to  a 
very  slight  decrease  between  1890  and  1900. 

The  largest  body  of  statistics  with  which  I  am  fami 
liar,  at  all  comparable  with  these  figures,  but  indicating 
the  conditions  of  the  Negroes  at  various  times  and 
places  before  the  war,  may  be  found  in  the  volume 
on  mortality  in  the  Eighth  Census  of  the  United  States.* 
The  statistics  thus  collected  are  for  the  eleven  cities 
of  Boston,  New  Bedford,  Providence,  New  York, 
Buffalo,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Washington,  Charles 
ton,  New  Orleans,  and  Memphis,  and  for  various 
dates  between  1818  and  1863,  with  the  exception 
of  Boston,  the  figures  for  which  include  also  the 
period  from  1725  to  1774.  Returns  from  these  cities 
ought  to  be  fairly  comparable  with  those  for  the  regis 
tration  area  of  1890  and  1900,  which  also  was  largely 
Northern  and  urban.  The  comparison  is  indicated 
in  Table  VI  on  the  following  page. 

Probably  these  figures  warrant  the  inferences  that 
the  death-rate  of  each  race  has  greatly  decreased  in 
the  United  States  in  fifty  years,  and  that  the  decrease 


*  See  page  280  of  that  volume.  These  figures  were  originally  compiled  for 
the  American  Freedmen's  Inquiry  Commission,  and  the  results  were  first  pub 
lished  in  the  report  of  that  commission  to  the  Secretary  of  War  (3 8th  Congress, 
First  Session,  Senate  Executive  Documents  No.  53,  p.  105.)  The  statistical 
work  of  that  commission  was  "greatly  aided  by  Dr.  Edward  Jarvis  of  Boston," 
one  of  the  most  careful  and  competent  students  of  vital  statistics  we  have  ever 
had  in  the  United  States.  He  "kindly  opened  to  the  commission  the  treasure  of 
his  valuable  statistical  library"  and  "personally  superintended  some  of  the 
researches."  The  figures  were  republished  two  years  later  with  some  additions 
in  the  census  volume.  It  is  from  this  latter  source  that  the  first  line  of  Table 
VI  has  been  prepared. 


The  Probable  Increase 


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516      The  American  Race  Problem 

for  the  Negroes  has  been  much  less  rapid,  both  abso 
lutely  and  relatively  to  the  initial  amount,  than  the  de 
crease  for  the  whites.  The  death-rate  indicated  for  Negroes 
in  1900  is  more  than  five-sixths  (84.6  per  cent.)  of  what 
it  was  at  the  earlier  period.  That  for  whites  is  less 
than  two-thirds  (64.1  per  cent.)  of  what  it  was  at  the 
same  period.  At  the  earliest  date  the  death-rate  of 
Negroes  exceeded  that  of  whites  by  29.8  per  cent 
of  the  lower  rate,  in  1890  it  exceeded  the  death-rate 
of  whites  by  56.5  per  cent.,  and  in  1900  by  71.5  per  cent. 
Before  the  war  the  difference  between  the  death-rates 
of  Negroes  and  whites  was  8.0,  in  1900  it  was  12.3. 
Clearly  in  this  field  the  benefits  of  progress  are  accruing 
more  to  the  white  than  to  the  Negro  race,  and  the 
difference  between  the  two  races  is  growing. 

In  order  to  get  more  specific  information,  the  popula 
tion  of  each  race  must  be  divided  into  sex  and  age 
classes,  as  in  Table  VII  on  page  517. 

From  the  figures  in  this  table  the  death-rates  of  the 
non-Caucasians  in  the  registration  area  by  age  and  sex 
may  be  computed  for  1890  and  1900,  and  the  change 
for  the  decade  estimated.  The  results  are  given  in 
Table  VIII  on  the  same  page,  into  which  the  death-rates 
of  whites  have  been  introduced  for  comparison. 

Table  VIII  indicates  that  there  was  a  decline 
in  the  mortality  of  Negro  infants  between  1890  and 
1900,  a  decline,  however,  less  than  half  that  in  the 
mortality  of  white  infants.  There  was  likewise  a  decline 
in  the  death-rate  of  Negro  children  five  to  fourteen 
years  of  age,  which  was  about  half  the  decline  in  the 


The  Probable  Increase 


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518      The  American  Race  Problem 

death-rate  among  white  children.  But  at  the  ages  of 
early  adult  life,  fifteen  to  forty-four  the  Negro  death- 
rate  increased  and  the  white  decreased;  and  at  the 
ages  of  forty-five  to  sixty-four  the  Negro  death-rate 
increased,  while  that  for  white  males  fell  and  for  white 
females  was  unchanged.  At  ages  above  sixty-five 
the  death-rates  of  each  race  increased. 

The  slight  improvement  in  the  death-rate  of  Negroes 
of  all  ages,  between  1890  and  1900,  is  thus  seen  to  be 
due  to  a  decided  fall  in  the  rate  for  children  and.  youth, 
largely  counterbalanced  by  an  increase  in  the  death- 
rate  of  adult  and  aged  Negroes.  Apparently  the  death- 
rates  of  the  two  races,  at  ages  between  fifteen  and  sixty- 
four,  are  changing  in  opposite  directions,  those  for 
whites  decreasing  and  those  for  Negroes  increasing. 
The  only  way  of  escaping  this  inference  is  to  claim 
either  that  the  records  of  deaths  among  Negroes  in  1900 
were  kept  so  much  more  accurately  than  in  1890 
as  to  convert  a  real  decrease  among  adults  into  an 
apparent  increase  —  which  seems  improbable  —  or  to 
claim  that  no  inference  can  be  drawn  from  figures 
relating  to  the  registration  area,  92  per  cent,  of  the 
Negro  population  of  which  lives  in  cities,  to  the  Kfegro 
population  of  the  entire  country.  The  last  objection 
is  weighty.  The  only  answer  to  it  is  that  wTe  have  no 
other  evidence;  that  these  figures,  while  not  conclusive, 
are  indicative,  and  probably  do  show  the  present 
tendency  in  a  large  and  increasing  fraction  of  the  race. 
The  evidence,  then,  indicates  a  high  but  rapidly  decreas 
ing  birth-rate  among  Southern  Negroes  as  a  whole, 


The  Probable  Increase          519 

a  very  low  and  rapidly  decreasing  birth-rate  among 
urban  Negroes  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  a  high  and 
very  slowly  decreasing  death-rate  for  urban  Negroes, 
and  an  increase  in  the  death-rates  of  urban  Negroes 
at  ages  above  fifteen  years. 

Owing  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Census  Office  in  furnish 
ing  me  with  certain  figures  not  contained  in  the  pub 
lished  volumes  of  the  Twelfth  Census,  I  am  able  to  add 
to  the  preceding  data  indicating  the  absolute  and 
relative  decrease  of  the  Negro  death-rate,  the  following 
table,  comparing  the  death-rates  of  white  and  Negro  in 
1900  at  twenty-four  age  periods.  To  facilitate  that 
comparison  a  column  is  added  showing  the  ratio  of  the 
non-Caucasian  death-rate  to  the  white. 

Table  IX.  on  page  520  shows  that  in  the  registration 
area  in  1900  the  death-rate  of  Negroes  was  greater 
than  that  of  whites  at  each  age  below  eighty.  The 
lower  death-rate  of  Negroes  above  eighty  years  of  age 
indicated  by  the  table  is  probably  due  to  the  large 
number  of  elderly  Negroes  who  overstate  their  age  to 
the  census  enumerators.  These  errors  are  undoubtedly 
more  common  in  the  returns  of  age  for  the  living  popula 
tion  than  in  the  returns  of  age  for  decedents.  Because 
of  them  little  confidence  can  be  placed  in  the  death- 
rates  at  very  high  ages.  At  practically  all  ages  under 
thirty  the  death-rate  of  Negroes  is  between  twice  and 
three  times  as  great  as  that  of  whites;  at  ages  between 
thirty  and  sixty-five  the  death-rate  of  Negroes  is  less 
than  twice,  but  more  than  one  and  one-half  times  as 
great  as  that  of  whites.  The  difference  between  the 


520      The  American  Race  Problem 


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The  Probable  Increase          521 

races  seems  to  reach  its  maximum  at  the  healthiest 
period  of  life,  ten  to  twenty  years  of  age,  when  the  Negro 
death-rate  is  about  three  times  that  of  the  whites,  and 
to  decrease  from  that  age  with  advancing  years. 

The  fundamental  explanation  of  the  falling  birth-rate 
and  almost  stationary  death-rate,  seems  to  me  to  lie 
in  a  growing  competition  between  Negroes  and  whites, 
and  a  decrease  in  the  relative  efficiency  of  Negroes 
compared  with  whites  —  a  decrease  which  is  by  no 
means  incompatible  with  an  increase  in  their  efficiency 
when  compared  with  their  own  standards  under  slavery 
or  in  the  early  years  after  emancipation.  If  such  a 
competition  has  been  in  progress,  some  reflection  of  it 
should  be  found  in  the  statistics  of  occupations.*  In 
those  statistics  the  non-Caucasians  were  first  distin 
guished  in  1890,  so  that  comparisons  can  be  made 
only  for  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
By  confining  the  figures  to  the  South  more  satisfactory 
results  are  reached,  both  because  that  region  contains 
few  Indians  and  Mongolians,  and  because,  if  figures 
for  the  whole  country  are  used,  geographical  differences 
between  North  and  South  might  be  mistaken  for  racial 
ones. 

There  are  certain  occupations  in  which  the  Southern 
Negroes  have  increased  proportionately  to  the  whites. 
Among  them  we  may  distinguish  several  classes. 

First  are  those  which  make  heavy  demands  upon  the 
muscular  system.  Workmen  in  such  occupations  in- 

*  For  detailed  figures  and  a  fuller  analysis  see  "  Supplementary  Analysis  " 
of  the  Twelfth  Census,  pp.  225-237  and  Census  Bulletin  8,  "Negroes  in  the 
United  States,"  pp.  52-64  and  164-187. 


522      The  American  Race  Problem 

elude  miners  and  quarry  men,  29.7  per  cent,  of  whom 
in  the  South  in  1890,  and  31.5  per  cent,  in  1900,  were 
Negroes;  saw-mill  and  planing-mill  employees,  41.6  per 
cent,  of  whom  in  1890,  and  46.1  per  cent,  in  1900,  were 
Negroes;  and  iron  and  steel  workers,  23.2  per  cent,  of 
whom  in  1890,  and  31.0  per  cent,  in  1900,  were  Negroes. 

A  second  class  includes  those  occupations  requiring 
little  skill,  and  in  many  cases  followed  only  in  an  ir 
regular  or  casual  way.  Such  occupations  are  those  of 
servants  and  waiters,  74.3  per  cent,  of  whom  in  1890, 
and  77.6  per  cent,  in  1900,  were  Negroes. 

A  third  class  is  one  in  which  the  service  is  rendered 
almost  entirely  to  members  of  the  Negro  race.  Ex 
amples  of  these  are  teachers,  18.3  per  cent.  Negro  in 
1890  and  19.2  per  cent,  in  1900;  and  clergymen,  36.5 
per  cent.  Negro  in  1890  and  37.5  per  cent,  in  1900. 
The  supply  of  Negro  clergymen  relative  to  the  Negro 
population  of  the  South  is  now  greater  and  increasing 
more  rapidly  than  the  supply  of  white  clergymen. 
There  is  a  noteworthy  difference  in  this  respect  between 
the  United  States  and  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philip 
pine  Islands.  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  have  about  the 
same  proportion  of  Negroes  as  our  Southern  states, 
but  in  the  two  islands  in  1899  only  six  Negro  clergymen 
were  reported,  or  one  in  seventy,  while  in  the  Southern 
United  States  more  than  one  clergyman  in  three  is  a 
Negro.  In  this  regard  the  Philippine  Islands  occupy 
an  intermediate  position.  With  more  than  99  per 
cent,  of  the  population  Malay,  less  than  three-fifths  of 
the  clergymen  in  the  islands  belong  to  that  race. 


The  Probable  Increase  523 

Those  occupations  in  which  the  Negroes  have  lost 
ground  at  the  South  since  1890  may  likewise  be  grouped 
into  classes. 

One  class  includes  occupations  in  which  persons  work 
without  close  and  constant  supervision.  This  is  true 
of  draymen,  hackmen,  and  teamsters,  of  whom  50.8 
per  cent,  in  1890  and  47.1  per  cent,  in  1900  were 
Negroes. 

Another  class  includes  occupations  in  which  the 
amount  of  skill  is  not  indicated  by  the  group  name. 
Here  would  fall:  launderers  and  laundresses,  93.5  per 
cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  91.5  per  cent,  in  1900;  steam 
railroad  employees,  39.5  per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and 
37.6  per  cent,  in  1900;  housekeepers  and  stewards,  32.4 
per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  23.2  per  cent,  in  1900; 
engineers  and  firemen,  20.9  per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890 
and  20.7  per  cent,  in  1900. 

There  is  also  a  class  of  handicrafts  which  require 
skill  and  capital,  in  which  the  Southern  Negroes  lost 
ground.  Such  handicraftsmen  include:  carpenters,  17.8 
per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  16.2  per  cent,  in  1900; 
blacksmiths,  23.4  per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  18.2 
per  cent,  in  1900;  barbers,  60.4  per  cent.  Negroes  in 
1890  and  49.4  per  cent,  in  1900;  fishermen  and  oyster- 
men,  38.1  per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  31.9  per  cent, 
in  1900;  tobacco  and  cigar  factory  operatives,  49.1 
per  cent.  Negroes  in  1890  and  44.6  per  cent,  in  1900. 

The  preceding  figures  seem  to  show  that  the  Negro 
race  at  the  South,  in  its  competition  with  the  whites, 
lost  ground  between  1890  and  1900  in  the  majority  of 


524      The  American  Race  Problem 

skilled  occupations  which  can  be  distinguished  by  aid 
of  the  census  figures. 

Confirmatory  evidence  may  be  derived  from  the 
figures  for  cotton-mill  operatives.  There  is  no  line  of 
expansion  in  the  South  more  important  than  the  growth 
of  cotton  mills.  We  are  told  in  the  special  report  on 
that  industry  that  its  growth  in  the  South  is  the  one 
great  fact  in  the  history  of  cotton  manufacturing  between 
1890  and  1900.  The  number  of  spindles  in  the  cotton 
manufacturing  States  of  the  South  —  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Alabama— more  than  trebled 
in  that  decade.  But  this  invasion  of  the  Negroes'  home 
by  cotton  manufacturing  has  furnished  little  occupation 
to  the  Negro.  In  1900  the  number  of  cotton- mill 
operatives  reported  in  the  country  was  246,000,  about 
one-third  of  them  in  the  cotton  mills  of  the  South; 
but  only  a  paltry  1,400  were  Negroes.  Cotton  manufac 
turing  is  by  far  the  most  important  industry  in  Georgia. 
The  capital  invested  in  it  is  double  that  in  any  other 
manufacturing  industry  of  the  state.  There  are  more 
than  1,000,000  Negroes  in  Georgia,  yet  only  417  are 
reported  as  cotton-mill  operatives.  Doubtless  some 
overflow  of  the  general  prosperity  has  reached  the 
Georgia  Negroes,  but  it  is  only  the  crumbs  that  fall 
from  the  rich  man's  table. 

A  similar  movement,  beneficial  to  the  South  as  a 
whole  but  benefiting  in  the  first  instance  the  whites 
and  only  indirectly  and  remotely  the  Negroes,  may  be 
traced  in  Southern  agriculture.  The  evidence  is  not 
so  broad,  the  statistical  induction  is  less  complete; 


The  Probable  Increase  525 

but  as  corroborative  testimony  certain  aspects  of  it 
deserves  attention.* 

The  acreage  sown  to  rice  in  the  United  States  more 
than  doubled  between  1890  and  1900.  Most  of  this 
increase  has  been  in  Louisiana,  which  produces  about 
three-fifths  of  the  American  crop.  The  crop  of  Louisiana 
is  produced  mainly  in  three  parishes  which  contain 
about  two-fifths  of  the  country's  acreage  and  produce 
more  than  two-fifths  of  its  yield  of  rice.  The  acreage 
of  rice  in  those  three  parishes  multiplied  more  than 
five  times  between  1890  and  1900.  With  the  develop 
ment  of  this  great  new  industry  the  population  of  these 
parishes  has  made  a  long  stride  forward,  increasing 
57  per  cent.,  or  at  more  than  twice  the  rate  of  the  state 
as  a  whole.  But  the  proportion  of  Negroes  in  those 
parishes  is  only  about  two-fifths  of  the  average  in  the 
state,  and,  while  the  Negro  population  has  increased 
in  the  ten  years  by  6,800,  the  white  population  has 
increased  by  more  than  20,000.  The  increase  of  the 
whites  in  those  three  parishes  consequent  upon  the 
prosperity  of  the  rice  industry  goes  far  toward  explain 
ing  the  decrease  in  the  proportion  of  Negroes  in  the 
entire  State  of  Louisiana  from  50  per  cent,  in  1890  to 
47.1  per  cent,  in  1900. 

Factors  in  this  development  have  been :  the  discovery 
of  abundant  supplies  of  oil  in  the  vicinity  furnishing 
needed  power;  the  construction  of  expensive  irrigation 
works;  the  introduction  of  varieties  of  rice  from  which 
water  can  be  drawn  away  toward  the  end  of  the  season, 

*  For  other  evidence  on  this  point  see  pages  450-454  of  this  volume. 


526      The  American  Race  Problem 

leaving  a  firm  soil  at  harvest  time;  the  introduction  of 
modern  agricultural  machinery,  the  gang-plough,  the 
horse-drill,  the  twine-binder,  and  the  steam-thresher. 
"One  harvesting  machine,"  we  are  told,  "operated  by 
one  man  and  five  mules,  does  in  one  day  what  formerly 
required  a  whole  family  and  hired  help  to  do  in  a 
season."*  White  men  have  come  in  to  manage  this 
machinery,  to  carry  on  agriculture  by  improved  methods. 
They  have  come  from  the  North;  the  increase  of  the 
natives  of  the  north  central  states  in  Louisiana  in  the 
last  ten  years  has  been  marked.  But,  doubtless,  the 
most  important  increase  has  been  among  the  white 
natives  of  that  region,  who  have  availed  themselves 
eagerly  of  the  new  avenues  to  prosperity. 

It  seems  inevitable  that  changes  having  a  similar 
effect  upon  the  competition  of  the  two  races  should 
go  on  in  cotton  growing.  I  may  refer  briefly  to  one 
that  is  a  serious  problem  now  in  Texas  and  a  serious 
menace  to  the  rest  of  the  cotton-growing  area  of  the 
country,  the  insect  pest  known  as  the  cotton  boll  weevil. 

This  pest  first  appeared  in  Texas  in  1892  and  in  Louisi 
ana  in  1903,  so  that  it  required  about  eleven  years  to 
cross  the  largest  state  and  the  greatest  cotton-growing 
state  in  the  Union.  On  the  average  it  extends  its 
field  of  activity  from  fifty  to  sixty  miles  in  each  season. 
The  work  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agri 
culture  has  not  resulted  in  devising  any  means  of  pre 
venting  or  materially  retarding  its  progress,  and  the 
department  expert  reported  in  1903  that  "the  steady 

*  Twelfth  Census,  Vol.  IX.,  p,  568. 


The  Probable  Increase  527 

extension  of  the  territory  affected  by  the  weevil.  .  .  . 
has  convinced  all  observers  that  it  will  eventually  be 
distributed  all  over  the  cotton  belt."*  The  amount  of 
loss  already  incurred  and  likely  to  result  from  this 
scourge  is  entirely  uncertain.  The  census  figures  for 
total  yield  of  cotton  in  1899  and  of  the  yield  per  acre 
do  not  indicate  that  the  position  of  Texas  as  the  banner 
cotton  state  is  endangered.  In  1889  she  produced  less 
than  one-fifth,  and  in  1899  more  than  one-fourth  of 
the  cotton  of  the  country.  The  only  evidence  I  have 
derived  from  the  figures  in  support  of  the  claim  that 
widespread  injury  has  been  done  is  that  the  yield  of 
cotton  per  acre  in  Texas  very  slightly  decreased  from 
1889  to  1899,  while  in  the  rest  of  the  cotton  states  the 
average  yield  per  acre  was  noticeably  greater  in  1899 
than  in  1889. 

But  in  any  case  this  pest  has  rendered  cotton  a  more 
difficult  and  uncertain  crop.  The  methods  recom 
mended  for  minimising  the  loss  are  early  planting, 
use  of  early  maturing  varieties  of  seed,  and  chopping 
and  burning  the  plants  as  soon  as  the  weevils  have 
prevented  the  maturing  of  more  cotton.  Energy, 
ingenuity,  and  perseverance  in  surmounting  new 
difficulties  are  far  more  characteristic  of  whites  than 
of  Negroes.  It  is  well  known  that  a  large  part  of  the 
field  work  in  the  cultivation  of  Texas  cotton  is  done 
by  whites.  It  seems  probable  that,  when  the  boll 
weevil  reaches  the  cotton-growing  district  of  the  lower 
Mississippi,  as  it  is  almost  certain  to  do  in  the  next 


*  Department  of  Agriculture,  Year  Book,  1903,  p.  an. 


528      The  American  Race  Problem 

ten  years,  and  finds  a  region  where  practically  all  the 
cotton  growing  is  done  by  Negro  labour,  it  will  bear 
more  hardly  upon  the  yield  in  that  district  than  it  has 
borne  upon  the  yield  in  Texas,  and  that  the  new  pest  will 
contribute  in  some  measure  either  to  decrease  the  import 
ance  of  that  area  as  a  cotton  centre  or  else  to  decrease 
the  dominance  of  Negro  labour  in  the  cotton  fields  there. 
A  movement  to  displace  Negro  labour  by  immigrant 
Italian  labour  in  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  has  already 
passed  the  incipient  stages.  I  may  quote  a  few  sentences 
from  a  recent  article*  by  a  cotton  planter  of  that  section 
describing  clearly  the  difference  between  the  two  sorts 
of  labour  as  he  knows  them.  After  asserting  that  the 
number  of  Italians  engaged  in  cotton  growing  along 
the  lower  Mississippi,  while  not  large,  "is  constantly 
increasing,"  that  the  Italian  can  "produce  more  cotton 
on  a  given  acreage  than  the  Negro,"  and  "gather  a 
greater  percentage  of  it  without  outside  assistance," 
and  that  he  "works  more  constantly  than  the  Negro, 
and,  after  one  or  two  years'  experience,  cultivates  more 
intelligently,"  the  writer  continues:  "From  the  garden 
spot  which  the  Negro  allows  to  grow  up  in  weeds,  the 
Italian  will  supply  his  family  from  early  spring  until 
late  fall,  and  also  market  enough  largely  to  carry  him 
through  the  winter.  I  have  seen  the  ceilings  of  their 
houses  literally  covered  with  strings  of  dried  butter 
beans,  pepper,  okra,  and  other  garden  products,  while 
the  walls  would  be  hung  with  corn,  sun-cured  in  the 
roasting  ea±  stage.  In  the  rear  of  a  well-kept  house 

*  "The  Italian  Cotton  Grower"  in  S.  Atl.  Quart.,  vol.  IV  (1905)  pages,  45-46 


The  Probable  Increase  529 

would  be  erected  a  wood-shed,  and  in  it  would  be  seen 
enough  firewood  sawed  and  ready  for  use  to  run  the 
family  through  the  winter  months.  ...  I  have 
seen  them  make  more  cotton  per  acre  than  the  Negro 
on  the  adjoining  cut,  gather  it  from  two  to  four  weeks 
earlier,  and  then  put  in  the  extra  time  earning  money 
by  picking  in  the  Negro's  field.  .  .  .  Handi 
capped  as  they  are  at  first  by  ignorance  of  the  language 
and  ignorance  of  the  cultivation  of  the  plant  they  raise, 
still  they  are  becoming  property  owners,  tax-payers, 
and  citizens." 

What  is  true  of  the  Italian  immigrant  must  be  still 
more  true  of  the  native  American  from  the  North  and 
West,  the  increase  of  whom  in  the  South  has  already 
been  mentioned. 

The  conclusion  to  which  I  am  brought  is  that  relatively 
to  the  whites  in  the  South,  if  not  absolutely  as  measured 
by  any  conceivable  standard,  the  Negro  as  a  race  is 
losing  ground,  is  being  confined  more  and  more  to  the 
inferior  and  less  remunerative  occupations,  and  is  not 
sharing  proportionately  to  his  numbers  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  country  as  a  whole  or  of  the  section  in  which  he 
mainly  lives. 

How  far  this  is  due  to  racial  characteristics,  disabling 
him  from  effective  competition  with  the  rival  and  domi 
nant  race,  and  how  far  it  is  due  to  economic  discrimina 
tion  against  members  of  the  race,  the  evidence  does  not 
indicate.  That  both  of  these  factors  now  cooperate 
in  the  result  seems  clear.  That  the  economic  discrimi 
nation  has  developed  and  is  maintained,  not  only  for 


53° 


The  American  Race  Problem 


economic  reasons,  but  also  in  part  and  perhaps  mainly 
for  social  and  political  reasons,  seems  equally  incontest 
able.  How  much  of  it  shall  be  assigned  to  one  and 
how  much  to  the  other  influence  could  be  measured 
only  if  either  occurred  without  the  other. 

No  reason  appears  for  expecting  that  the  tendencies 
which  I  have  sought  in  this  article  to  demonstrate  and 
to  explain  will  soon  cease  to  be  controlling.  They 
have  set  in  recently,  to  be  sure,  but  they  seem  to  be 
increasing  in  scope  and  intensity,  and  to  be  likely  to 
continue  so  to  increase.  Should  they  do  so,  the  differ 
ences  in  the  rates  of  growth  of  the  two  races  at  the 
South  are  likely  to  become  wider,  and  the  increase  of 
Negroes,  both  absolute  and  relative,  to  be  slower  than 
any  of  the  foregoing  estimates  has  assumed. 

LIST  OF  OTHER  WRITINGS  OF  WALTER   F.    WILLCOX  ON  THE 

NEGRO 

"Migration  of  Negroes"  (Review)  in  American 
Statistical  Association  Publications,  Vol.  V.  (1897),  pp. 

371.  372- 

"Race,"  in  Census  of  Porto  Rico    (1899),  PP-   55"^2. 

An  address  before  the  First  Annual  Conference  of  the 
Southern  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  the  Study  of 
Race  Conditions  and  Problems  in  the  South.  Mont 
gomery,  Ala.,  May,  1900,  pages  152-156. 

Preface  to  "The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,"  by 
J.  A.  Tillinghast  in  American  Economic  Association 
Publications,  Vol.  III.  (1902),  No.  2. 


The  Probable  Increase  531 

"Negro  Population,"  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Bulletin 
8  (1904),  pages  n-68. 

"Negroes  of  Columbia,  Mo.,"  by  W.  W.  Elwang 
(Review),  American  Statistical  Association  Quarterly 
Publications,  Vol.  IX,  (1904),  p.  132. 

"Negro  Education  not  a  Source  of  Crime,"  Leslie's 
Weekly,  March  17,  1904. 

"Economic  Position  of  the  American  Negro,"  Ameri 
can  Economic  Association  Publications,  Vol.  VI.  (1905), 
p.  216 

"The  Colour  Line,"  by  W.  B.  Smith  (Review), 
Political  Science  Quarterly,  Vol.  XX.  (1905),  p.  321. 

"Race"  and  "Negroes"  in  Bureau  of  the  Census, 
"Supplementary  Analysis  und  Derivative  Tables" 
(1906),  pp.  175-275. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abdul  Rahaman,  slave,  but 
not  Negro,  430 

Abolition  of  slavery,  and 
reconstruction,  Jamaica 
and  United  States,  338 

Absorption  of  races,  233; 
in  Central  America,  26,27; 
political  and  social,  26.  (See 
also  Admixture,  Amalgama 
tion,  Assimilation,  Inter 
marriage,  Miscegenation) 

Accommodations,  public, 

Negro  and,  330.  (See  also 
Separate  cars,  Separate 
schools) 

Acreage  of  cotton,  working 
hand,  Italian  and  Negro, 
Sunny  Side,  182,  183,  196 

Acton,  J.  E.  E.  D.  (Lord), 
dictum  of,  H.  0.  Lea  on, 

7>  9 

Adaptability  of  the  Negro, 
234,  235,  236;  to  Southern 
climate,  173 

Administration,  capacity  of 
mulatto  for,  402.  (See 
also  Self-government) 

Admixture  of  races,  Eliot, 
of  Harvard  on,  61 ;  French 
and  Spanish,  compared  with 
Anglo-Saxon,  402.  (See  also 
Absorption,  Amalgamation, 
Assimilation,  Intermarriage, 
Miscegenation) 

Africa,  inferiority  of  Negroes 
of,  428,  429;  partition  of, 
55;  race  solidarity  in,  H.  A. 
Wilson  on,  239;  tribal  polity 
of,  375;  tribal  polity  com 
pared  with  plantation  gov 
ernment,  376;  "Africa  for 
Africans,"  331 


African  Society  of  London,  42 

Afro-American  vote,  T.  T. 
Fortune  on,  359,  360;  Kelly 
Miller  on,  361 

Age,  accuracy  of  answers  to 
questions  regarding,  478 

Agitators,  mulatto,  influence  of, 
434;  Negro,inthe  North,  411 

Agriculture,  cultivation  in, 
Negro  and  Italian  care  in, 
192,  196;  Italian  and  intens 
ive,  185,  186;  Negroes  in,  47, 
177,  489,  524,  525;  machin 
ery  and  the  Negro  farm 
hand,  526;  Booker  T. 
Washington  on  Negro 
opportunity  in,  171.  (See 
also  Cotton,  Gardening,  Rice, 
Tobacco) 

"Agriculture  in  Delaware,"  90 

Alabama,  mulatto  and  Negro 
population,  41 ;  percentage 
of  Negro  population,  44,  45 

Alexandria,  Va.,  lynching  at, 
1899,  472. 

Allen,  Sarah  A,  on  McKinley 
and  the  Negro,  288 

Amalgamation,  racial,  26,  27; 
Massachusetts,  1843,  6o>  6l'» 
in  West,  65.  (See  also  Ab 
sorption,  Assimilation,  Inter 
marriage,  Miscegenation) 

Ambition,    Negro,    no 

Andrew,  John  A.  (Governor  of 
Massachusetts)  on  Negro 
suffrage,  413,  414;  on  non- 
slaveholding  whites,  260; 
on  Reconstruction  policy, 
414;  on  slavery,  260 

Anglo-Saxons,  attitude  to 
ward  Negro  race,  6,  55,  56; 
E.  A.  Ross  on,  241. 


535 


536     The  American  Race  Problem 


Antipathy,  racial,  definition 
of,  212 

Arkansas,  Italian  experiment 
in,  1 80;  mulatto  and  Negro 
population,  41 

Arson,  Negroes  and,  459-62,464 

Assimilation,  of  races,  in  the 
United  States,  56.  (See  also 
Absorption,  Admixture, 
Intermarriage,  Miscegena 
tion) 

Association  of  ideas,  and 
relations  between  white  and 
Negro  races,  266  et  seq. 

Atkinson  Edward,  on  Negro 
wealth,  150 

Atkinson  (Ex-governor  of 
Georgia),  on  guilt  of  Sam 
Hose,  468,  469 

Atlanta  Exposition,  Negro 
recognition  at,  308 

Attitude,  race,  221-6,  234; 
effect  of  numbers  on,  13, 
14,  26,  29,  32,  35,  40,  53-5, 
217,  390;  Southern,  to 
Negro,  25;  white,  to  native 
Hawaiian,  54;  necessity  of 
uncompromising,  E.  A.  Ross 
on,  241 

Attucks,  Crispus,  a  mulatto, 
43° 

Baker,  T.  Nelson,  on  mulatto 
factor,  437 

Baldwin,  W.  H.,  on  Negro 
suffrage,  277;  on  social 
equality,  316,  317;  on  suf 
frage  restrictions,  371 

Ballot,  non-exercise  of  right 
to,  361;  right  of,  against 
proper  use  of,  358.  (See  also 
Suffrage) 

Baltimore,  industrial  ostra 
cism  in,  170 

Bamboula,  16 

Banks,  N.  P.,  on  Northern 
solicitude  for  the  Negro,  43  2 

Banneker,  Benjamin,  a 
mulatto,  430 

Bantu  stock,  imported  in 
slave  trade,  430 


Barbadoes,  Negro  population 
compared  with  Mississippi^ 

Barbers,  Negroes  as,  decline 
of,  523;  efficiency  as  com 
pared  with  white,  168; 
lessening  number  of,  in 
Chicago,  New  York,  155,157 

Barney,  Nathaniel,  on  separate 
coaches,  67 

Bee,  Washington,  on  Washing 
ton-Roosevelt  Dinner,  318, 

3J9 

"Benders,"  114 

Bequests,  from  white  ances 
tors  to  Negroes,  153 

Berbers  and  Negroes,  race 
prejudice  between,  230 

Birth-rate,  Negro,  491;  Negro 
and  white,  1850-1900,  506 
et  seq. 

"Black  and  Tan"  Legisla 
tures,  work  of,  263,  264 

"Black    belt,"    82 

"Black  codes"  (ante-bellum) 
severity  of,  proportionate  to 
Negro  population,  217.  (See 
also  Freedmen's  statutes) 

Blacksmiths,  Negro,  decline 
of,  523 

Blaine,  James  G.,  on  South  and 
Negro  suffrage,  352;  on 
Southern  attitude  to  freed- 
men,  20;  on  Southern, 
freedmen's  statutes,  12 

Boers  and  native  suffrage,  390 
391;  and  rights  of  Negroes,  2  7 

Bonding  of  free  Negroes  and 
mulattoes,  Massachusetts, 
1788-1834,  58 

Bootblacks,  Negro,  sup 
planted  by  Greeks,  in 
Chicago,  157;  in  New  York, 
154;  in  Topeka,  Kansas,  159; 

Boston,  Mass.,  economic  de 
cline  of  Negro  in,  159;  hotel 
accommodations  for  Negroes 
in,  317;  race  prejudice  in 
schools  of,  2 1 1 ;  race  rela 
tions  in,  Augusta  P.  Eaton 
on,  236;  white  women  and 
intermarriage,  62 


Index 


537 


Boston  Reform  League  on  race 
prejudice  in  domestic  ser 
vice,  161 

Brewer,  Bob,  Negro  murderer, 

435 

Brown,  John,  8 

Browne,  Hugh  M.,  on  indus 
trial  decline  of  the  Negro, 
454,  455 

Bruce,  Senator  B.  K.,  a 
mulatto,  430 

Bruce,  Philip  Alexander,  on 
plantation  system,  89 

Bruce,  R.  0.,  88 

Bryce,  James,  on  colour  line 
in  South  Africa,  166;  on 
Jamaica,  37;  on  Khama 
and  social  equality  in  South 
Africa,  345;  on  segre 
gation  in  South  Africa,  24; 
on  self-governing  colonies, 

38,39 

Butlers,  Negro,  decline  of, 
in  Boston,  161 

Cabins,  98 

California,  Japanese  exclusion, 

7 

Callis,  H.  J.,  on  Negro  church 
in  Boston,  160 

Candler,  Allen  (Governor),  on 
lynch  law,  469,  470 

Cape  Colony ,  Ethiopian 
Church  in,  388;  half  castes 
of,  A.  R.  Colquhoun  on, 
406;  Negro  in  politics,  387, 
388;  political  rights,  27;  suf 
frage,  34,  35;  Natives,  con 
ditions  compared  with  that 
of  Negroes  in  South,  406; 
their  population  compared 
with  that  of  Mississippi, 
46 

"Caribs,"  government  of  the, 
277 

Carolina  rice-crop,  14 

Carpenters,  industrial  decline 
of  Negroes  as,  523 

Carpet-bagger,   261 


Oars,  discrimination  on,  330; 
riding  in,  Negroes  and, 
no.  (See  also  Separate  cars) 

Cash  advancement  to  Negro 
hands  on  Dunleith  Planta 
tion,  148 

Caterers,  Negro,  155 

Catholicism  and  race  control, 
230,  231,  325;  and  race  pre 
judice  230-31;  and  French 
invasion  of  the  Indians, 
267 

Census  and  the  Negro,  476, 
et  seq. 

Central  America,  Negro  influ 
ence  in  revolutions  of,  402; 
political  and  social  absorp 
tion  of  the  Negro,  26,  27 

Character,  Negro,  145,  147. 
(See  also  Negro,  character 
istics  of) 

Charles,  Robert,  Negro  mur 
derer,  435 

Charleston  County,  S.  0., 
Negro  population,  44 

Ohesnutt,  Charles  W.,  206;  a 
mulatto,  430;  on  mulattoes, 
428 

Chicago,  industrial  decline  of 
Negro  in,  157;  election  of 
Negro  judge,  362 

Children,  statistics  of,  Negro 
and  white  under  five,  1850— 
1900,  506 

Chinese,  exclusion  of,  8;  race 
friction,  219,  decline  of  due 
to  decline  of  population, 
218;  racial  superiority  of, 
214 

"Christmas  money,"  139,  148 

Circus,  1 10 

Cities,  Negro  population  in, 
481,  482 

Civil  equality,  28,  330 

Civil  Rights  Act,  in  District  of 
Columbia,  etc.,  310 

Civil  service,  Roosevelt  and 
Negroes  in,  311,  312 

Oivil  Service  Commission, 
report  on  coloured  race  in 
Federal  service,  312  (note) 


The  American  Race  Problem 


Civil  War,  compared  with 
foreign  wars,  340;  verdict 
of,  and  the  South,  297 

Clemens,  Samuel  L.,  295 

Clergymen,  Negro,  in  United 
States,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico, 
and  Philippines,  522 

Climate,  Southern  Negro 
adaptability  to,  173 

Coachmen,  efficiency  of  white 
versus  Negro,  167 

Coleridge-Taylor,    206 

Colonies,  American,  govern 
ment  of,  379,  380;  J.  B. 
McMaster  on  412,  413 

Colonisation  of  the  American 
Negro,  Jefferson  on,  233 

Colorado,  Negro  suffrage  in,  3 1 

Colour  line,  abolition  of,  Du 
Boison,  241 ;  general  drawing 
of,  in  South,  165;  in  South, 
Councill  and  DuBois  on, 
262,  263;  inter-racial,  in 
America,  408,  in  Jamaica, 
404,  in  South  Africa,  407; 
Reconstruction  and,  259 

Colour   prejudice,    20,    22 

Coloured  American  Magazine, 
on  Orum  appointment,  302, 

3°3 

Colquhoun,  Archibald  R.,  on 
Ethiopian  movement,  331; 
on  capacity  for  self-govern 
ment  in  races  of  Africa  and 
Asia,  378;  on  half-castes  of 
Cape  Colony,  406;  on  West 
Indian  Negroes,  376 

Columbia,  the  United  States 
and  white  domination  in,  55 

Competition  between  the 
races,  450;  effect  on  Negro 
death  rate,  521;  effect  on 
Negroes,  149  et  seq.,  on 
social  relations,  88 

Congress,  investigation  of  suf 
frage  laws  by,'  429;  Negroes 
in,  415;  Southern  repre 
sentation  in,  419,  421  (note) 

Connecticut,  Negro  governor, 
in  Civil  War,  377;  Negro 
suffrage,  31 


Consent  of  the  governed,  O.  H. 
Platt  on  intelligent,  392; 
J.  B.  McMaster  on  women 
and,  412 

Constitutions,  Southern,  and 
disfranchisement  of  the 
Negro,  384;  and  the  illiter 
ate  white,  374 

Contact,  personal,  with  Negro, 
effect  of  slavery  on,  225; 
law  of  2 1 7-9,  Northern  white 
man  and,  223  224;  ultimate 
effect  of,  78 

Convict  system,  96 

Corbin,  Austin,  and  the  Ital 
ians  in  Arkansas,  180 

Corn  mill,  117 

Cost  of  living,  Italian  versus 
Negroes,  184  et  seq. 

Cotton,  acreage  production, 
138;  boll  weevil,  and  ne 
cessity  for  intelligent  white 
labour,  526,  527;  crop  in 
Yazoo— Mississippi  Delta, 
84;  Italians  and,  179,  180; 
industry,  47 ;  mill-operators, 
decline  of  Negro,  524; 
pickers,  scarcity  of,  103, 
104;  value,  Dunleith  Plan 
tation,  148;  white  and 
Negro  labour  in,  450;  yield, 
Yazoo  -  Mississippi  Delta, 
114 

Councill,  W.  H.,  on  colour 
line,  262;  on  evils  of  Negro 
solidarity,  279;  on  relation 
of  master  and  slave,  256;  on 
white  supremacy  and  Negro 
suffrage,  352 

Country,  Negro  population  in, 
481,  482 

Cranford,  Alfred,  killed  by 
Sam  Hose,  a  Negro,  463 

Credit  system,  101 

Crime,  Negro,  443,  et  seq.; 
lynching,  and  decrease  in, 
473;  Massachusetts  and, 
57,  58 

Crittenden  &  Co.,  O.  B.,  suc 
cessors  to  Sunny  Side 
Company,  181 


Index 


539 


Crop  lien  system,  101,  102, 
103,  136 

Cropper  system,  99 

Crum  appointment,  246  et 
seq.;  302,  303 

Cuba,  capacity  for  self- 
government,  Wolfred  Nel 
son  on,  394  395,  W.  Inglison, 
395;  domination  of  white 
race  in,  55;  Negro  clergy 
men  in,  522;  Negro  popu 
lation,  compared  with 
Mississippi,  47 ;  Platt 
Amendment,  393 

Cultivation,  care  in,  Italian 
versus  Negro,  192,  196.  (See 
also  Agriculture) 

Cundall,  Frank,  on  Jamaican 
form  of  government,  379 

Cutler,  James  Elbert,  47;  on 
lynch  law,  74 

Daniels,  John,  on  economic 
condition  of  Negroes  in 
Boston,  1 60 

Death-rate,  Negro,  490,  491; 
before  and  after  civil 
war,  513-21 

DeBerry,  W.  N.,  at  Spring 
field,  Mass,  161:  on  indus 
trial  race  prejudice,  19 

Delta.  See  Yazoo-Mississippi 
Delta 

Democracy  and  lynching,  475 

Deportation  as  a  means  of 
lessening  Negro  crime,  474 

DeTocqueville  on  results 
of  emancipation,  232 

Dining  cars,  displacement  of 
Negroes  as  waiters  on, 

159 

Discrimination  against  Negro, 
59;  before  the  war,  227; 
complaints  of,  from  mulat- 
toes  rather  than  Negroes, 
433;  economic,  14,  161, 
529,  530;  in  Massachusetts, 
57,  58;  by  New  Bedford 
Traction  R.  R.,  67;  North 
and  South,  13,  14;  suffrage, 
and, 356 


Disfranchisement  of  the 
Negro,  371,  384-7;  in  the 
South,  354,  355,  361;  ne 
cessity  for,  417 

District  of  Columbia,  civil 
rights  in,  310;  government 
°f»  379»  382;  Negro  in,  38; 
political  equality  in,  227 

Distribution  of  Negro  popu 
lation,  effects  of,  on  race 
relations,  13,  14,  26,  29, 
32»  35»  4o,  53-5,  217, 
39° 

Domestic  service,  decline  of 
Negro  in,  Boston,  Chicago, 
the  South,  158-61 

"Door  of  Hope,"  286,  287; 
Negro  closing,  against  him 
self,  202;  Theodore  Roose 
velt  and,  246,  286 

Douglass,  Frederick,  a 
mulatto,  430 ;  on  dependence 
of  South  on  Negro  labour, 
172;  on  Kansas  exodus,  172; 
on  Negro  achievement,  150 

Drainage,  117 

Duane,  James,  and  the  Ethi 
opian  movement,  323  (note) 

DuBois,  W.  E.  B.,  206;  a 
mulatto,  430 ;  on  colour  line, 
262,  263  ;  on  general  equality 
of  races,  240,  241 ;  on  Negro 
crime,  446;  on  Negro 
immorality,  205;  on  Negro 
wealth,  150;  on  Negroes 
of  Farmville,  Va.,  457; 
on  Northern  slave  trade, 
14;  on  race  contact,  326; 
on  relation  of  master  and 
slave,  256;  on  Southern 
people,  75 

Dumas,  Alex.,  a  mulatto,  41 

Dunbar,  Paul  L.,  206;  on 
kindliness  between  races, 
258;  on  Reconstructions, 
Negro,  283 

Dunleith  Plantation,  experi 
ment  on,  197,  198;  statis 
tics,  1899-1903,  148 


540     The  American  Race  Problem 


Dunning,  W.  A.,  47;  on 
Negro  suffrage  in  Recon 
struction,  271;  on  relation 
between  master  and  freed- 
men,  in  Reconstruction,^  09 

Eaton,  Augusta  P.,  on  race 
relations  in  Boston,  236 

Education,  industrial,  89; 
Negro,  and  decrease  of 
crime,  failure  of,  473,  effect 
on  desire  for  self-support, 
449,  as  suffrage  qualifica 
tion,  372 

Efficiency  of  the  Negro, 
compared  with  Italians,  173 
et  seq.,  at  Sunny  Side,  183, 
184;  relative,  456;  decline  in 
relative  521;  in  Mississippi, 
J.  0.  Hardy  on,  177  et  seq., 
in  South,  174  et  seq. 

Elevation  of  the  black  race, 
office  holding  and,  306,  307 

Eliot,  Charles  W.  (President 
Harvard),  on  admixture  of 
the  races,  61 ;  on  separate 
schools,  68 

Emancipation,  Jefferson  on, 
233  ;  Lincoln  on,  8,33;  Freed- 
men's  statutes  of,  attitude 
of  North  to,  n,  12;  race 
friction  and,  472,  473;  race 
problems  and,  253,  254; 
restrictive  legislation  of, 
10 

Emigration  to  North,  Negro, 
512;  B.  T.  Washington  on, 

53 

Enlistment  of  Negroes,  in 
North,  29 

Environment,  influence  of,  on 
race  attitude,  6,  15,  43,  44, 
81,390.  (See  also  Numbers) 

Equality,  economic,  201 ;  in 
the  South,  228;  Lincoln  on, 
20;  industrial,  see  Industrial 
equality;  political,  see  Po 
litical  equality;  racial,  214; 
fetish  of,  397;  social,  see 
Social  equality 


Ethiopian  movement  in  South 
Africa,  323  (note),  388;  A. 
R.  Colquhoun  on,  331 

Exclusion,  Negro,  in  Massa 
chusetts,  1812,  58 

Excursions,  Negroes  and,  no 

Expediency,  J.  B.  McMaster 
on  principle  of,  in  suffrage 
laws  of  United  States,  412, 

413 

Expense  account,  Negro  versus 
Italian,  184  et  seq. 

Family  life  among  Negroes, 
448 ;  relation  of,  to  '  obedi 
ence  to  laws,  447.  (See  also 
Home  life) 

Farm,  U.  S.  Census  definition 
of,  90 

Farming,  Negro,  see  Agri 
culture 

Farmville,  Va.,  W.  E.  B.  Du 
Bois  on  Negroes  of,  457 

Females,  Negro,  excess  of, 
485  ;  in  city  population,  486; 
in  occupations,  488 

Fertility  of  soil  versus  white 
.management,  Mississippi, 
178 

Fertilizers  in  Delta,   113 

Fifteenth  Amendment,  30,  283 
(note) 

Financial  returns,  security  of, 
Italians  versus  Negroes,  192 

Firmin,  A.,  on  Roosevelt,  321 

Fitch  (of  Hampton  Normal 
Institute),  on  industrial  de 
cline  of  the  Negro,  455 

Florida,  percentage  of  Negro 
population,  49 

Food,  Negro,  character  of,  454 

Fort,  J.  H.,  129  (note),  182 
(note) 

Fortune,  T.  T.,  on  condition 
of  Negro  in  the  South,  203, 
204;  on  industrial  decline 
of  Negro,  43-5 ;  on  standing 
of  the  Afro-American  vote, 

359 

France  and  Indians,  E.  E. 
Hale  on,  266,  267 


Index 


54i 


Free  Negroes,  29;  in  1860,  151 ; 
in  Illinois,  Indiana,  Oregon, 
Ohio,  57;  attitude  of  Massa 
chusetts  toward,  in  1821, 

57,  58 

Freedman's   Bureau,   271 
Freedmen  and  former  masters, 

276 

Freedmen's        statutes,       10, 
1 1 ;    James    G.    Elaine   on, 
1 2  ;  James  Ford  Rhodes   on, 
12;  Mississippi  34,  35.   (See 
also  Black  codes) 
Friction,  see  Race  friction 
Frissell,    H.    B.    (Principal   of 
Hampton   Institute) ,  on  in 
dustrial      decline      of      the 
Negro,  455 
Fulah   stock,    in   slave   trade, 

43° 

"Fusion"  system,  369 

Future  of  the  Negro,  203,  204; 
and  immigration,  172;  in 
the  South,  171,  172 

Gambling,    Negro    propensity 

for,  107 
Gardening,  Negro  and  Italian, 

*95>  X97 

Garfield,  James  A.,  on  reduc 
tion  of  Southern  represen 
tation,  419 

Georgia,  cumulative  poll  tax 
and  Negro  disfranchisement, 
355;  mulattoes  in,  41; 
Negroes  in  cotton  mills  of, 
524;  Negro  suffrage  in,  35; 
proportion  of  Negro  popu 
lation,  44,  45,  49;  Legisla 
ture,  censure  of  McKinley, 
283,  293  294,  eulogy  of 
McKinley's  fraternal  senti 
ments,  297 

Gilliam,  E.  W.,  estimate  of 
Negro  population  in  1980, 

496,  497 

Gordon     riots,       1865,     399 
(note) 

Government,  adaptation  to 
people  and  races  to  be 
governed,  348, 375,  376,  394; 


and  consent  of  the  governed, 
O.  H.  Platt  on,  392;  Jam 
aica  form,  Cundall  on,  379; 
mulatto  capacity  for,  401 ; 
Negro  and  responsible  form 
of,  37;  without  representa 
tion,  B.  T.  Washington  on, 

^  392,  393   T 

Grant,  J.  P.,  despotism  of, 
in  Jamaica,  375 

Great  Britain  and  the  race 
problem,  382,  396,  397 

Greenville,  Miss.,  Negro  popu 
lation  1900,  50,  51 

Grimke,  Archibald  W.,  on 
race  prejudice  in  Boston, 
167 

Grimke,  Rev.  Francis  J.,  16 

Grosvenor,  C.  H.,  on  McKinley 
and  the  Negro,  282,  293 

Haiti,  inter-racial  colour  line 
in,  409;  Negro  dominion  in, 
332;  its  accomplishments, 
396;  Negro  race  in,  27, 
political  instability  of,  402, 
revolution  in,  269,  popula 
tion,  Negro,  compared  with 
Mississippi,  47,  white  expul 
sion  by,  267 

Hale,  Edward  E.,  on  French- 
Indian  warfare,  266,  267 

Half-castes,  in  Cape  Colony, 
406;  Portugese,  406.  (See 
also  Mulattoes) 

Hammond,  M.  B.,  47 

Hampton  Negro  Conference, 
on  Negro  crime,  445 

Handicrafts,  decline  of  Negro 
in,  523 

Hardy,  J.  O.,  on  economic  con 
ditions  in  Mississippi,    177 
178 

Hart,  A.  B.,  on  Negro  suffrage 
in  Reconstruction,  270 

Hawaiian  Islands,  decline  of 
race  friction  proportionate 
to  decline  of  native  popu 
lation,  54;  overthrow  of 
native  Negro  government, 
54 


542      The  American  Race  Problem 


Hayes,  R.  B.,  and  death 
of  Reconstruction  govern 
ments,  358 

Henderson,  Will,  Negro 
murderer,  435 

Hinds  County,  Miss.,  economic 
efficiency  of  Negro  in,  178 

Hindu,  and  racial  superiority, 
214 

Hoch  (Governor  of  Kansas),  on 
separate  schools,  70 

Hoffman's  "Race  Traits  and 
Tendencies  of  the  American 
Negro,"  62 

Hogansville,  Ga.,  Negro  post 
master  at,  283,  294 

Home  life  of  Negro,  146,  207, 
448.  (See  also  Family  life) 

Hose,  Sam,  lynching  of,  463 ; 
opinions  as  to  guilt  01,468,469 

Hotels,  Boston,  accommoda 
tions  for  Negroes  in,  317 

Houses,  Negro,  in  Delta,  98, 1 1 8 

Howells,  W.  D.,  42  ;  on  Charles 
W.  Chesnutt,  428;  on  New 
England  discrimination,  67 

Hyde,  W.  DeW.,  on  Recon 
struction,  265 

Illinois,  exclusion  of  free 
Negroes,  32;  exclusion  of 
Negroes,  33;  proportionate 
Negro,  population,  49;  suf 
frage  in,  33 

Illiteracy,  advantage  of  white 
race  inheritance  in,  374; 
decrease  in,  among  Negroes, 
486,  487 

Immigration,  assisted  by 
Italian  cotton  growers, 
192;  and  economic  future 
of  the  Negro,  172;  into 
South,  510,  511;  Italian,  at 
Sunny  Side,  194;  Western 
states,  prohibition  of  Negro, 
in,  32 

Immorality  of  the  Negro,  205 
et  seq.',  DuBois  on,  205 

Improvidence  of  the  Negro,  205 

Incendiarism,  Negroes,  and 
Palmetto,  Ga.,  460-2 


Indiana,  prohibition  of  free 
Negroes,  32 

Indianola  post  office,  247 
<?/  seq.,  309 

Indians,  decline  of  race  friction 
with,  due  to  decline  in 
proportionate  population, 
54,  56;  attitude  of  white 
races  to,  56 

Indolence,  Negro,  145 

Industrial  equality,  201;  and 
social  equality,  329,  330; 
in  the  South,  228;  Lincoln 
on,  20;  in  Yazoo-Mississippi 
Delta,  88 

Inferiority  of  Negro  race,  426, 
428,  429 

Inglis,  W.,  on  capacity  of  Cuba 
for  self-government,  395 

Initiative,  white  versus  Negro 
in,  179 

Instability  of  Negro,  202 

Inter-Colonial  Commission,  re 
port,  1905,  388,  389 

Intermarriage,  between  white 
and  Negroes  and  mulattoes, 
inWest,  65  ;  in  Massachusetts, 
60,  61,  with  white  women, 
1843,  6o>  61.  (See  also 
Absorption,  Amalgamation, 
Miscegenation) 

Iron  works,  Negro  employees 
in,  456  (note) 

Issaquena  County,  Miss.,  per 
centage  of  Negro  popu 
lation,  85 

Italians,  care  in  cultivation, 
192,  196;  characteristics  of, 
0.  Scott  on,  194,  195;  com 
pared  with  Negroes  in 
cotton  fields,  182,  528,  529; 
as  cotton-growers,  179,  at 
Sunny  Side,  182;  economic 
efficiency  compared  with 
that  of  Negroes,  155,  156, 
157,  174  et  seq.;  in  South, 
174;  experiment  in  Arkansas, 
1 80;  in  Mississippi,  174; 
Willcox  on  Italians  and 
the  sugar-cane  crops,  173 


Index 


543 


Jamaica,  and  South  Africa, 
Colquhoun  on  contrasting 
conditions,  406 ;  charter, 
surrender  of,  a  generation 
after  emancipation,  37; 
government  of,  restrictive 
form  of,  375  ;  F.  Cundall  on, 
379;  inter-racial  colour  line, 
404;  race  problem,  absence 
of,  3  5 ;  conditions  favorable 
for  harmonious  race  rela 
tions,  3  78,3  7  9;mulattoes  and 
Negroes  in,  W.  P.  Living 
stone  on,  399;  mulattoes  in, 
401 ;  Negro  and  politics  in, 
227,  405;  population  com 
pared  with  Negro  popula 
tion  of  Mississippi,  47; 
suffrage  in,  35 

Janitors,  Negroes  as,  decline 
of,  in  Chicago,  New  York, 

T  '55»  157 

Japanese,  assertiveness  of,  and 
race  friction,  219;  exclusion 
of,  7 ;  racial  superiority  of, 
214;  San  Francisco  schools, 
334;  in  Korea,  8 

Japanese-Russian  War,  effect 
of  yellow  victory  on  Negro 
races,  239,  240 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  on  coloni 
sation  of  American  Negroes, 
233;  on  emancipation,  233 

Jenifer,  G.  D.,  on  relation  of 
master  and  slave,  257,  258 

Jockeys,  coloured,  displace 
ment  of,  1 68 

Jones,  Roderick,  on  Negro  in 
Cape  Colony  politics,  388; 
on  white  supremacy  in  Cape 
Colony,  36 

Jones  County,  Miss.,  economic 
efficiency  of  Negro  in,  177 

"Juramentados,"  in  Philip 
pines,  466,  467 

Juxtaposition  of  the  races, 
see  Contact 

Kansas,  exodus,  Fred.  Doug 
lass  on,  172;  white  com 
petition,  159 


Kansas  City,  Kans.,  separate 

schools,  69 
Kealing,     H.     T.,     on    Negro 

character,      189,      190;     on 

Negro  wealth,   150 
Kelsey,  Carl,  47;    on    Negro's 

garden,     195;  on    Northern 

view  of  Negro,  7 1 ;  on  white 

managers,  179 
Kentucky,      mulattoes       and 

Negroes,  proportion  of,  in, 

41;       purchase     of      Negro 

votes,  364    (note);  separate 

coaches,  66 

Khama,  24;  and  social  equal 
ity  in  South  Africa,  345 
Kidd,  B.,  on  race  superiority, 

206,  207 

Kimberley  mines,  145 
Kindliness,   B.  T.  Washington 

on,   251;   P.  L.  Dunbar  on, 

258 
Kingsley,     Mary,     on     Negro 

capacity,  42 
Koran     and     indifference     to 

race  in  religion,  325 
Korea,  Japanese  in,  8 

Labouchere,  Henry,  on  segre 
gation,  24 
Labour,  scarcity  of  Negro,    as 

cotton     pickers,     103,    125; 

white     versus      Negro,      in 

various         crops,        450-3; 

unions   and   contracting   in 

the  South,  169 
Lamar,  on  Reconstruction  and 

Negro  suffrage,  272 
Land-owners,  Negro,  113,  143 
Latins   and  Anglo-Saxons,   as 

related  to  the  mulatto,  402  ; 

and  race  prejudice,  230 
Lea,  H.  0.,  on   Lord  Acton's 

standard    of    conduct,    7,    9 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  on  prosperity 

of  nations,  207 
Lee,   Robert  E.,  as  a  traitor, 

Leupp,  F.  E.,  B.  T.  Washing 
ton  at  White  House,  244 
(note) 


544     The  American  Race  Problem 


Liberia,  inter-racial  colour  line 
in,  409,  mulatto  governor 
in,  402;  the  Negro  in, 
27 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  on  eman 
cipation,  8,  ii ;  on  emi 
gration  of  Negro  to  North, 
33;  on  Negro  equality,  20 
233;  on  race  differences, 

.233 

Lincoln-Johnson  Reconstruc 
tion  plan  and  Negro  suf 
frage,  278 

Lint  cotton  per  acre,  Dunleith, 
148;  per  hand,  at  Sunny 
Side,  183  et  seq.',  per  acre, 
at  Sunny  Side,  183  et 
seq. 

Livingstone,  W.  P.,  on 
American  and  West  Indian 
Negro,  338  (note);  on 
Jamaican  "black,"  399 

Local  conditions  and  the  race 
problem,  see  Environment 

Louisiana,  farm  machinery 
in,  525,  526;  free  mulatto 
class,  339;  Italian  immigra 
tion  into,  1731  Mulattoes 
and  Negroes  in,  41 ;  Negro 
adaptability  to  climate  of,  F. 
Douglass  on,  173 ;  population, 
increase  of  white,  525,  526; 
proportion  of  Negro,  49; 
rice  crops  and  increase  of 
white  population,  525,  526 

L'Ouverture,  Toussaint,  prob 
ably  a  mulatto,  409  (note), 

43° 

Lowndes  County,  Miss.,  eco 
nomic  efficiency  of  Negro 
in,  177 

Loyalty  of  the  South,   298 

Lyman,  Theo.,  Jr.,  on  pro 
posed  exclusion  of  Negroes 
from  Massachusetts,  57 

Lynch,  John   R.,   a  mulatto, 

43° 

Lynch  law,  Governor  A. 
Candler  of  Georgia  on, 
469  470;  J.  E.  Cutler  on, 
74 


Lynching,  47,  92,  93;  Democ 
racy  and,  475;  at  Palmetto, 
Ga.,  461—5;  as  prevent 
ing  development  of  public 
opinion  common  to  both 
races,  474;  legislation 
versus,  and  decrease  of 
crime,  473 

Machinery,  farm,  and  decline 
of  the  Negro  in  agriculture, 
526 ,  and  the  Negro  labourer 
in  Louisiana,  453 

McKinley,  William,  and  the 
Negro,  276  et  seq.;  tact 
and  diplomacy  of,  285, 
286 

McMaster,  J.  B. ,  on  expediency 
as  the  principle  of  suffrage, 
411;  on  government  of 
American  colonies,  412,413; 
on  necessity  for  practical 
suffrage  laws,  411-4 

Maine,  mulatto  and  Negro 
population,  41 

Majorities  and  race  control,  367 

Managers,  white,  178  et  seq.', 
plantation,  91,  92 

Manual  labour,  social  senti 
ment  toward,  449,  450 

Maoris,  decline  of  race  friction 
due  to  decline  in  population, 
and  white  control  in  New 
Zealand,  381,  382 

Marion,  Mass.,  and  white 
labour,  7 

Marriage,  statistics  of  Negro, 
487;  Negro  regard  for, 
108 

Massachusetts,  and  the  slave 
trade,  14;  and  proposed 
exclusion  of  free  Negroes 
and  mulattoes,  1821,  57, 
bonding  of,  1788-1834,  58; 
mulatto  and  Negro  popula 
tion,  41 ;  proportion  of 
Negro  population,  49;  rela 
tive  numbers  and  race 
relations  in,  57;  white 
women  and  intermarriage 
in,  62. 


Index 


545 


Masters  and  slaves,  relations 
between,  326;  and  former 
slaves,  reconstruction  as 
engendering  animosity  be 
tween,  276 

May,  Samuel,  on  separate 
coaches,  67 

Mazimba  and  the  Ethiopian 
movement,  323 

Menial  labour,  Negro,  in 
Baltimore,  Washington,  170 

Mestizo,  431 

Metayers,  Italian,  99;  J.  S.  Mill 
on,  174,  194 

Mexico,  political  and  social 
absorption  of  Negro  in,  26,  27 

Michigan,  mulatto  and  Negro 
population,  41;  percentage 
of  Negro  population,  49 

Middle  Ages,  race  hatred  in, 
465-6 

Migration,  Negro  habit  of, 
109, 145 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  Italian 
me'tayer,  123,  174,  194 

Miller,  Kelly,  on  lack  of  Negro 
interest  in  politics,  360,  361; 
on  social  equality  of  races, 

23°»  325 
Minnesota,  Negro  suffrage  in, 

31 

Miscegenation,  61.  (See  also 
Absorption,  Amalgamation, 
Assimilation,  Intermarri 
age) 

Mississippi,  alluvial  district, 
population  of,  1900,  366; 
climate  of,  F.  Douglass  on 
Negro  adaptability  to,  173; 
Constitution  of  1890,  condi 
tions  antecedent  to,  384, 
385,  discriminations  against 
Negro  in,  354;  equality, 
legal,  73;  farms  in,  90,  91; 
fertility  of  soil  and  white 
managers,  178;  Freedmen 
Statutes,  attitude  of  North 
to»  34,  35;  population, 
compared  with  South  Africa 
and  West  Indies,  46,  47, 
Negro,  1900,  50,  proportion 


of  Negro  to  white,  44,  45,  46, 
49,  52,  mulatto  and  Negro, 
41 ;  proportion  of  population 
applied  to  other  localities, 
51,  85;  suffrage  in,  366, 
polled  and  registered  vote, 
357  (note) ;Yazoo- Mississippi 
Delta,  83  et  seq. 

Mixed  population  and  classi 
fication  of  mulattoes  with 
Negroes,  399;  government 
for,  39 

Mohammedanism  and  race 
control,  325 

Mokane  and  the  Ethiopian 
movement,  323  (note) 

Money,  advancement  of,  Dun- 
leith,  148 

Mongolians,  attitude  of  white 
races  to,  55 

Monroe  doctrine,  8 

Moors,  not  Negroes,  430 

Morals,  Negro,  107,  205;  stan 
dards  of,  local  adaptation  of, 
7 ;  illustrations  of,  7-9 

Morocco,  Sultan  of,  his  Negro 
blood  and  Berber  prejudice, 
230 

Motives,  assigning  of,  322 

Mulattoes,  21,  27;  as  agitators, 
434;  T.  Nelson  Baker  on, 
437;  capacity  of,  404;  factor 
in  race  problem,  397  et  seq., 
425  et  seq. ;  free  in  Louisiana, 
339;  in  Jamaica,  399,  401, 
intelligence  of,  401 ;  Jamai 
can  and  American,  402 ; 
Liberia,  governing  class  in, 
402;  Latins  and  Anglo- 
Saxons  and,  40 2;  leaders  of 
Negroes,  291 ;  Massachusetts 
and  the,  in  1821,  47;  North 
ern,  40;  office  holders,  305, 
369;  proportion  to  Negroes, 
41  et  seq.,  397;  Reconstruc 
tion,  255,  political  oppor 
tunity  of,  in,  403 ;  and  social 
equality,  288;  statistics  of, 
479  et  seq.;  Spanish  and 
American,  402.  (See  also 
Half  Castes) 


546     The  American  Race  Problem 


Murders,  Negro,  glorification 
of, 43  5;  statistics  of,  Miss.,  107; 
Texas,  66;  Kansas  City,  69 

Murillo's  pupil  a  mulatto, 
430 

Nast,  Thomas,  on  Southern 
people  during  Reconstruc 
tion,  265 

Natal,  native  problem  in,  323 
(note);  opposition  to  Negro 
suffrage  in  a  South  African 
Confederation,  391 ;  popula 
tion  compared  with  that 
of  Mississippi,  46;  resent 
ment  against  Great  Brit 
ain  in  local  difficulties,  364; 
rights  of  Negroes  in,  27 
National  Negro  Business 

League,  153 

Negro,  achievements,  of  151; 
and  the  Berber,  230; 
antiquity  of  race,  428;  as 
federal  soldier  and  increase 
of  crime,  473;  as  a  peasant 
class,  410;  as  a  labourer, 
work  per  annum,  453;  as 
soldier,  29;as  voter,  356,357, 
362,363 ;  birth  rate,  491,  506, 

Capacity  of,  41 ;  Mary 
Kingsley  on,42 ;  Oliver  on,403 

Characteristics  of,  100, 
102,  108,  109,  145,  147,  184, 
188,  192,  205,  355,  359; 
ambition,  no;  gambling, 
107;  improvidence ,  205, 
indolence,  145,  initiative, 
179,  instability,  202 

Classes  of,  40,  335; 
DuBois  on,  457;  higher 
classes  and  effect  on  crime, 
469,  470;  their  relation  to 
the  whites,  292; 

Economic  future  of,  in 
South,  198,  199 

Education  and,  324 

Ethnic  history  of,  426 

Food  of,  454 

Free,  29 

Immorality  of,  205 

In  Africa,  331,  332,  428, 


429;  identity  of  American 
with,  428,  429;  opposition  to 
suffrage,  390,  391;  in  South 
African  politics,  387,  388; 
venality  of  Negro  voter  in 
South  Africa,  388 

In  business,  Wanamaker, 
on,  153 

In  Cuba,  personal  decor 
ation,  395 

In  North  Carolina,  census 
1890,  365;  Negro  rule,  365 

In  office,  attitude  of  North 
to,  249,  Chicago,  362;  in 
North,  304;  (note);  416 
Roosevelt  and,  279  el  seq. 

In  politics,  35 1  el  seq.; 
Dunbar  on,  284;  elimination 
of,  in  Jamaica  405,  in  Bos 
ton,  159  el  seq.;  in  the 
minority,  the  politician's 
tool,  389,  390;  Jamaica, 
District  of  Columbia  and 
New  Zealand,  381,  382; 
scorn  of  white  man's  advice 
in,  368;  South  African, 
387,  388;  W.  Taft  on,  353, 

37 In  the  North,  B.  T.  Wash 
ington  on,  20 1 

In  the  South,  economic  fu 
ture  of ,  in,  18-20,  198,  199; 
F.  Douglass  on  Negro  as 
economic  author  of  pros 
perity,  173;  responsible 
tor  the  Solid  South,  278 

In  West  Indies,  F.  A.  Ober 
on,  395,  396;  characteristics 
of ,  3  7  6 ;  failure  of  self-govern 
ment  in,  394 

Incapacity  for  self-govern 
ment,  399-401;  in  West 
Indies,  394 

Industrial  decline  of, 
453-6,  493.494, ;  H.M. Brown 
on,  454,  —  Fitch  on  455; 
H.  B.  Frissell  on,  455; 
T.  T.  Fortune  on,  455; 
W.  F.  Willcox  on,  in  the 
South,  171,  industrial  de 
cline  of ,  in  Boston,  159  el 


Index 


547 


Negro  —  Continued 

seq.  in  Chicago,  157;  in 
New  York  City,  154,  155; 
in  the  South,  171 

Industrial  monopoly  of, 
in  1865,  151 

Industrial  opportunity,  2 1 

Industrial    ostracism,    of 

Springfield,       Mass.,       162; 

threatened  in  South,  169, 170 

Industrial    service     from, 

demand  for  better,  in  South, 

166 

Jamaican,  338;  classes  of, 
339;  capacity  for  self- 
government,  401;  and  the 
mulatto,  399;  politically, 
381,  382 

Leaders  among,  355 
Love    for    royalty,    375-8 
McKinley  and,  242,^  seq. 
and  Mulatto,  classification 
of  mulattoes  as  Negroes,  398 ; 
northern    identification    of, 
398,   404;  mulatto  achieve 
ment    credited     to     Negro, 
427,     428;      mulattoes,     as 
leaders    among,     291;    and 
mulattoes     in     the     South, 

397 

Point  of  view  of,  15  et  seq. 

Political  relations  of,  types, 
26-8 

Population,  Negro  dis 
tricts,  16;  distribution  of, 
in  United  States,  481; 
in  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta, 
84;  outside  the  South,  238; 
probable  increase  in,  18; 
urban,  238,  458 

Proportionate  population 
and  suffrage,  30,  31 

Race  solidarity  of,  459- 
65;  attitude  toward  the 
white  race,  300,  301 ;  W.  H. 
Councill  on  evils  of,  279; 

Reconstruction  and,  261, 
26 2;  type,  283,284;  Lincoln- 
Johnson  plan,  278 

Representation  at  Atlanta 
Exposition,  308 


Republican  Party  and, 
the  Negro  plank,"  418 

Roosevelt  and,  242  et  seq., 
276  et  seq. 

Social  equality,  attitude  of, 
toward,  221,  226,  234,  237 

Statistics  of,  47 

Suffrage,  failure  of, 
J.  F.  Rhodes  on,  415,  416,  a 
non-party  opposition  to, 
353;  and  Lincoln- Johnson 
Reconstruction  plan,  278; 
opposition  to,  in  South 
Africa,  390,  391 ;  and  reduc 
tion  in  Southern  vote,  357 

Teuton  and  Latin  races 
and,  326 

Italian  and,  174  et  seq. 

Voter,  character  of,  362, 
363;  in  relation  to  suffrage 
tests,  356,  357;  venality  of, 
383,  in  South  Africa,  388 

Wealth,  Edward  Atkinson 
andW.  E.  B.  Du  Bois  on,  1 50. 
(See  also   under   names    of 
states  and  cities) 
Nell,  W.  0.,  211 
Nelson,  Wolford,  on  capacity 
of  Cuba  for  self-government, 

394,  395 

Nevada,  conditions  of  admis 
sion  to  Union,  8 

New  Bedford  Traction  R.  R., 
Negro  exclusion  from  cars 
of,  67 

New  England,  political  equality 
in,  227;  population,  pro 
portionate  48;  estimate  on 
basis  of  Mississippi  Negro, 
proportion,  51 

New  Jersey,  percentage  of 
Negro  population,  44 

New  Orleans,  tragedy  of  1902, 

435 
New  York,  "San  Juan  Hill," 

48;  Negro  quarters,  156 
New  York  Age,  on  industrial 

decline    of     Negro    in    New 

York  City,  154,  155 
New  York  State,  estimate    of 

Negro  population  on  basis 


548      The  American  Race  Problem 


of  Mississippi  proportion, 
5 1 ;  percentage  of  popu 
lation,  Negro,  44,  48,  49 

New  York  Union  League  Club, 
and  coloured  servants,  159 

New  York  World  on  Negro 
wealth,  150 

New  Zealand,  race  relations  in, 
411;  method  for  South 
Africa,  382 

North,  attitude  of,  toward 
Negro  crime,  472;  Negro  in, 
economic  condition  of,  201, 
economic  future  of,  172, 
economic  opportunity  in, 
17  et  seq. ;  Negro  agitators  in, 
411;  Negro  immigration  from 
South  into,  512  ;  Negro  type 
in,  40;  and  Negro  policy, 
46;  Negro  viewed  by,  as 
"Dark  skinned  white  man," 
Kelsey  on,  71;  unfounded 
solicitude  of,  for  Negro's 
condition,  N.  P.  Banks  on, 
43  2  ;  and  Washington  dinner 
at  White  house,  246 

North  Carolina,  Constitution  of 
1898,  conditions  antece 
dent  to,  385;  race  war  in, 
365 

Northen,  W.  J.,  on  causes  of 
race  friction,  458,  459 

Northern  industrial  ostracism, 
Springfield,  Mass.,  162,  163 

Noxubee  County,  Miss.,  eco 
nomic  efficiency  of  Negro 
in,  178 

Numbers  (or  numerical  pro 
portions)  of  races,  effect  on 
race  relations,  13,  14,  26, 
29>  32>  35»  4o,  53-5,  217, 
366,  390;  DuBois,  on,  14; 
B.  T.  Washington,  53;  their 
relation  to  control  in  politics 
367;  in  New  Zealand,  381, 
382 

Ober,  F.  A.,  on  Haitian  Negroes, 
377;  on  West  Indian  Negro, 

395,  39.6 
Occupations,    colour    line    in, 


1 66;  Negroes  in,  statistics  of, 
488,  489;  skilled,  522,  523, 
(See  also  specific  occupations 
e.  g.,  Barbers) 

Office  holding,  112;  question 
able  benefit  to  black  race, 

3°5>  3o6 

Ohio,  percentage  of  Negro 
population  in,  49;  prohibi 
tion  of  free  Negroes,  32 

Oklahoma,  mulatto  and 
Negro  population,  41 

Olivier,  Sydney,  on  capacity  of 
pure  Negro,  403  ;  on  capacity 
for  self-government,  401 ;  on 
mulattoes,  401;  on  "Negro 
rights,"  378 

Opportunity,  class  and  racial, 
and  the  law,  410;  industrial, 
21 

Oregon,  prohibition  of  free 
Negroes,  32 

Ostracism,  industrial,  Spring 
field,  Mass.,  162 ;  threatened 
in  South,  169,  170;  social, 
as  a  Southern  weapon,  275 

Otman  dan  Fodio,  not  a  Negro, 

43° 

Outlook,  on  Negro  in  office,  280 
"Overcrop,"    116 
Overseers,  see  Managers 
Oyster  shuckers,  180 

Page,     Thomas     Nelson,     on 
probable  increase  in  Negro 
population,    498 
Palaver,  Negro  love  for,  287 
Palmetto,  Georgia,  race  friction 

at,  459-65 

Panama,  Republic  of,  8 
Party    versus  corruption,  367 
Patterson,  Raymond,  on  Negro 

suffrage,  362 

"Peasant"  class,  Negro  as,  410 
Pennsylvania,    Negro   popula 
tion,  percentage  of,  44,  49, 
estimate  on  basis  of  Missis 
sippi  proportion,  51;  Negro 
suffrage,  64;  suffrage  article 
in  constitution,  30 
Peonage,  72 


Inde: 


549 


Perry  County,  Miss.,  economic 
efficiency  of  Negro  in,  178 

Philadelphia,  exclusion  of 
Negroes  from  cars  in,  67; 
Wanamaker  on  Negro  busi 
ness  men  in,  153 

Philippine  Islands,  govern 
ment  of,  382;  Negro  clergy 
men  in,  5  2  2  ;  race  problem  in, 
214,  250,  466,  467 

Pickens,    William,   328 

Plantation,  duties  of,  owners, 
91,  92;  government  of, 
similarity  of  African  tribal 
polity,  376;  system,  Bruce 
on,  89 ;  statistics  of ,  1 28  et  seq. 

Platt  Amendment,  8,  393 

Platt,  Orville  H.,  on  conditions 
necessary  for  self-govern 
ment,  391 

Point  of  view,  Negro,  15; 
North  and  South,  347 

Political  equality,  261,  333; 
ante-bellum  discrimination, 
227;  impracticable  test  of, 
B.  T.  Washington  on,  307; 
in  the  South,  proper  source 
of,  3 09,  310;  in  South  Africa, 
Inter-Colonial  Commission 
report  on,  389;  and  race 
intermixture,  376 

Politics,  in  the  race  question, 
in  North  Carolina,  non- 
partisanship  of,  385,  386 

Negro  in,  351  etseq;  Dun- 
bar  on,  284;  as  the  politi 
cian's  tool,  389,  390;  char 
acter  of  his  participation  in, 
416;  in  South  Africa,  387, 
388 ;  status  in  North,  31,  32; 
in  Reconstruction,  261,  262; 
elimination  of,  in  Jamaica, 
405;  his  scorn  of  white 
man's  advice  in,  368; 
Jamaica,  District  of  Colum 
bia,  and  New  Zealand,  381, 
382 

Polity,   African  tribal,  376 

''Poor  white"  in  Yazoo- 
Mississippi  Delta,  87 

Population,  census  omissions, 


479;  increase  in,  due  to 
agriculture,  525,  526;  rela 
tion  to  race  friction,  32,  57, 
218,  390;  mixed,  and  classi 
fication  of  mulattoes  with 
Negroes,  399 
Negro,  31,  481,  in  1900, 

50,  increase  in,    1790—1900, 
499—501,     1860—1900,     152, 
probable  increase,  496  ^  5^7. ; 
distribution    of,    40   et  seq., 
44,  proportionate  and  Negro 
suffrage,  30,  31,  proportion 
ate  to  white,  57,  177,  481-4, 
estimates      of,        51,       and 
rape,   94,    agricultural,  177, 
centre   of,  43,    North  Caro 
lina,    365;    distribution    of, 
on    Mississippi    proportion, 

51,  Massachusetts,  increase, 
1810—1820,  59,  60,  rural  and 
urban,   53 

White,  increase  of,  due  to 
extension      of      agriculture, 

525>  526 

Porto  Rico,  government  of, 
382;  Negro  clergymen  in, 
522;  Negro  population  com 
pared  with  that  of  Missis 
sippi,  47 

Prejudice,  industrial,  182,  201; 
absence  of  in  South,  168. 
(See  also  Race  prejudice) 

Presidents  of  the  United  States 
and  the  Southern  people, 
295,  296 

Primaries  in  South  and  reduc 
tion  in  Southern  vote,  357 

Prisoners,  Mississippi,  106; 
Negro,  in  North,  444,  in 
United  States,  443,  445 

Professions,  Negro  in,  increase 
of,  493,  522 

Property,  ownership  of,  rela 
tion  to  Government,  386, 
387;  Negro  ownership  of, 

112,    152 

Prosperity  of  nations,  W.  E. 
H.  Leckyon,  207 

Protestantism  and  race  re 
lations,  230.  231,  325 


550      The  American  Race  Problem 


Psychology  and  race  relations, 

266  et  seq 
Puck   on    Roosevelt    and   the 

Negro,  289 

Qualifications,  suffrage,  Negro 
and  white,  374 

Race,  antipathy,  212 

Attitude,  221-6,  234,  An 
glo-Saxon, 6,  55,  56, 331,  336, 
effect  of  numbers  on,  13,  14, 
26,  29,32,35,40,53,55,217, 
366,  390,  E.  A.  Ross  on 
necessity  of  uncompromis 
ing,  241,  Southern,  to  Negro, 
25,  white  to  native  Hawaian 

54 

Assimilation,  56;  classifi 
cation,  215,  216;  contact, 
law  of,  6,  33,  97;  conscious 
ness,  240,  331,  33  2;  control, 
55  et  seq.,  abstractions 
versus  conditions  in,  74 
et  seq.,  Catholicism  and,  in 
Mississippi,  366;  differences, 
Lincoln  on,  233 

Friction,  70,  211  et  seq., 
226,  325,  355,  458,  459»  472, 
473,  and  the  Chinese,  8,  218, 
219, in  Middle  Ages,  465,  466, 
Reconstruction  and,  472, 
473;  Government  and  race, 
349?  375,  376,  in  South 
Africa,  389,  401 

Intermixture,  see  Absorp 
tion,  Amalgamation,  Assimi 
lation,  Intermarriage,  Mis 
cegenation 

Prejudice,  26,  Anglo- 
Saxons  and  Latins  and,  402, 
Arabs  and,  230,  and  Japanese 
exclusion,  7,  in  Boston,  161, 
211,  in  industry,  19,  and 
intermarriage,  63,  and  race 
preservation, 69,  and  slavery, 
N.  S.  Shaler  on,  221,  in 
Springfield.  Mass.,  161,  in 
the  South,  B.  T.  Washington 
on,  165,  and  suffrage,  29 

Preservation,  69,   346,    in 


South.  165,  166;  proportion, 
effect  on  race  prejudice,  48 

Relations,  Jamaica,  378, 
New  Zealand,  381,  382, 
problems  of,  493,  Protes 
tantism  and,  230,  231,  325, 
B.  T.  Washington  on  kind 
liness  in,  251,  variety  of,  252, 
respect,  95;  solidarity,  Ne 
gro,  239,  459;  superiority, 
necessity  of,  96,  B.  Kidd  on 
causes  of,  206,  207;  race 
war,  North  Carolina,  356; 
problem  of,  obliteration  not 
solution,  336;  sectional 
influences  and,  3,  4,  coun 
tries  where  it  obtains,  9, 10 

Railroads  and  Negro  labour 
in  Delta,  87 

Rand,  gold  mines,  145 

Rape,  92,  93,  94,  95;  Missis 
sippi,  86,  97,  98;  Alexan 
dria,  Va.,  472;  absence  of, 
in  Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta, 
86,  96,  97 

Reconstruction,  47;  character 
of,  265;  effects  of,  264,  265, 
276;  experiences  in,  268; 
Hayes  and,  358;  Northern, 
on  friction  due  to,  458,  459; 
Rights  of  South  in,  J.  A. 
Andrews  on,  414;  Negro 
suffrage  and,  W.  A.  Dunning 
and  Lamar  on,  272;  Negro, 
in  politics  of,  261,  262,  369; 
Jamaica,  absence  of,  338; 
and  the  Negro,  249  et  seq., 
261,  262,  276,  278,  369; 
Revels,  H.  R.,  on,  278;  and 
the  Referee  System,  343 

Reed,  T.  B.,  on  Roosevelt,  287 

"Referee  system,"  242  note, 
309,  314,  340  ct  seq.t  356 

Registration,   355,   358 

Regulation  of  slaves,  see 
Slavery 

Religion,  Negro  enthusiasm 
for,  i 6 

Removals,  farm,  133 

Renting  system,  99,  100,  115, 
129,  136,  137 


Index 


Representation  in  Congress, 
Southern,  proposed  reduc 
tion,  419,  421  (note) 

Republican  Party,  and  the 
Negro,  353, 365, 418;  in  Colo 
rado,  Connecticut,  Minnesota 
and  Wisconsin,  3 1 ;  in  North 
Carolina,  365;  and  Negro 
suffrage,  31 

Revels,  H.  R.,  on  effect  of 
Reconstruction  on  the 
Negro,  278 

Revolution,  loyalists  and 
traitors  of,  341 

Rewards,  political,  and  Negro 
leaders,  355,  356 

Rhode  Island,  percentage  of 
Negro  population,  45 

Rhodes,  J.  F.,  on  Elaine's 
account  of  Freedmen's 
Statutes,  12;  on  failure  of 
Negro  suffrage,  415,  416 

Rice,  Louisiana,  decrease  in 
Negro  population  in  rice 
districts,  525,526;  white  and 
Negro  labour  in,  452 

"Rights,"  Negro,  310 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  and  the 
Negro,  242  et  seq.,  276 
et  seq.,  286,  310,  311,  411; 
his  diplomacy  in  the  South, 
286;  T.  B.  Reed  on,  287; 
and  San  Domingo,  396; 
and  social  equality,  245; 
R.  H.  Terrell  on,  311 

Ross,  Edward  A.,  on  Anglo- 
Saxons  and  the  Negro,  241 

Royalty,  Negro  love  for,  375-8, 

395.   396 

Russo-Japanese  war,  effect  of 
yellow  victory  on  Negro 
races,  239,  240 

"San  Juan  Hill"  district, 
New  York,  48 

Santo  Domingo,  Negro  domi 
nation  in,  27,  332;  Negro 
population  compared  with 
that  of  Mississippi,  47 ; 
Roosevelt  and  treaty  with, 
396 


Saturday  holiday,  454 

Scalawags,  342 

Schurz,  Carl,  on  wealth  of 
Negroes,  156 

Scott,  C.,  on  Italian  cotton 
growers,  194 

Scottron,  S.  R.,  on  economic 
statistics  of  the  Negro,  154 

Secession,,  right  of,  341 

Sectionalism  and  race  relations 
3,  4,  10,  347,  348,  418;  in 
South  and  Natal,  346 

Segregation  of  the  Races,  5, 
63,  64,  66,  67,  233,  237;  in 
South  Africa,  24 

Self-  government ,  conditions 
necessary  for,  412;  O.  H. 
Platt  on,  391;  Negro  capa 
city  for,  36  37  370,372,373, 
399,  400,  H.  L.  West  on, 
415,  S.  Olivier  on,  401,  in 
Africa  and  Asia,  375,  A. 
H.  Colquhoun  on,  378,  in 
Jamaica,  375;  Plantation 
self-government,  377;  in 
Cuba,  W.  Nelson,  W.  Inglis 
on,  394,  395  ;  J.  B.  McMaster 
on,  411,  414.  (See  also 
Administration) 

Separate  cars,  64,  217,  337 
(note) ;  in  Kentucky  and 
Texas,  65,  66;  Samuel  May 
and  N.  Barney  on,  67 

Separate  schools,  68  et  seq., 
217;  in  Boston,  211;  Presi 
dent  Eliot  on,  68;  in  Kansas 
City,  8 ;  in  San  Francisco,  334 

Separation  of  the  races,  hard 
ships  of,  on  higher  class  of 
Negroes,  67,  337 

Servants,  household,  decline 
of  Negroes  as,  158 

Sex,  excess  of  Negro  females, 
485 

Sexual   relations,    Negro,    108 

Shaler,  N.  S.,  on  amicable  race 
relations,  221 

Share  system,  126,  136,  137 

Shootings,  Negro,  in  Texas,  66 

Slaughter,  Linda  Warfel,  on 
Southern  education,  275 


552     The  American  Race  Problem 


Slave  trade,  Anglo-Saxon  race 
and,  55;  DuBois  on  the 
North  and,  14 

Slavery  and  race  friction, 
220,  230;  Shaler  on,  221; 
economic  conditions  and, 
14;  and  relations  of  master 
and  slave,  253,  254,  255, 
J.  A.  Andrews  on,  260, 
W.  H.  Councill  on,  256, 
DuBois  on,  G.  D.  Jenifer  on, 
257,  258,  J.  H.  Smyth  on, 
256,  "Traveller"  in  New 
York  Evening  Post  on,  259; 
statutes  of,  10 

Smyth,  J.  H.,  on  relations  of 
master  and  slave,  257 

Social  equality,  22,  229,  313 
et  seq.,  333;  and  the  lower 
Negro  classes,  335;  and  the 
mulatto,  238;  among  strata 
of  Negroes,  457;  claims  to, 
and  race  friction,  219,  220, 
in  Central  America,  27; 
in  Mexico,  27,  in  South 
Africa,  24,  25,  345,  406, 
in  South  America,  27; 
Japanese  and,  334;  Khama 
and,  345;  DuBois  on,  326, 
327;  Lincoln  on,  233;  W. 
Pickens  on,  328;  Kelly  Mil 
ler  on,  230,  325;  Roosevelt 
and,  245;  regulations  of,  25; 
social  separation  of  Missis 
sippi,  86; 

South,  birth  rate  and  immigra 
tion,  510,  511;  statistics  of, 
508,  509;  economic  opportu 
nity  in,  164,  199;  lawless 
conditions  of,  B.  T.,  Wash 
ington  on,  73  ;  loyalty  of,  298 ; 
Negro  in,  Birth  rate  of, 
508,  509,  510,  511;  charities 
for,  327,  DuBois  on,  75; 
condition  of,  compared  with 
Gape  Colony,  406,  F. 
Douglas  on,  172,  T.  T. 
Fortune  on,  171;  Future  of, 
171;  Danger  of  control  by, 
365;  Disfranchisement  of, 
354,  355;  immigration  and, 


200;  in  local  politics,  364; 
mulattoes  and,  397;  rights 
of,  301,  420;  Roosevelt  and, 
242  et  seq.;  solidarity  of, 
367;  and  suffrage,  363 

Referee  system  and,  340 
et  seq.;  scalawag  in,  343; 
Roosevelt  in,  299;  planta 
tion  system  and  African 
tribal  polity,  376;  Solid 
South,  265,  266,  278,  308, 
368,  369,  419,  reasons  for, 
278,  308,  368,  Negro  respon 
sibility  for,  278 ;  Washington 
dinner  and,  320;  Teachers 
of  Negro  schools  in,  272,  274 

South  Africa,  and  "Africa  for 
Africans,"  240,  331;  Bryce 
on  colour  line  in,  166; 
Negro  in,  in  politics,  387, 
388,  population  of,  com 
pared  with  that  of  Missis 
sippi,  46,  suffrage  of,  and 
proposed  South  African 
Confederation,  390,  391; 
New  Zealand  method  for, 
382;  Jamaica  and,  con 
trasting  conditions  of 
Negroes  in,  Colquhoun  on, 
406;  "a  white  man's  coun 
try,"  229;  racial  discrimina 
tion  in,  24 

South  America,  political  and 
social  absorption  in,  26,  27 

South  Carolina,  mulatto  and 
Negro  population,  41 ;  per 
centage  of  Negroes,  49 

Southern  constitutions,  and 
disfranchisement,  361,  384; 
and  restriction  of  Southern 
representation  in  Congress, 
357,  421  (note),  J.  A.  Gar- 
field  on,  419 

Spanish-American  war,  Mc- 
Kinley's  Southern  appoint 
ments  in,  296 

Springfield,  Mass.,  race  preju 
dice  in,  19,  161 

Squads,  Negro  and  Italian  at 
Sunny  Side,  comparison  of, 
185,  186 


Index 


553 


"Square  deal,"  286 

Stock,  Sunny  Side,  ownership 

of,  by  Negroes  and  Italians, 

191 
Stone,    A.     L.,    on    Northern 

education     of     the     South, 

273.  274 

Stone  and  Fort,  117,  124,  128 
Suffrage,  Congressional  inves 
tigation    of    laws    of,    429; 
exercise  of  right,  neglect  of, 

358; 

Negro,  351,  indifference 
of,  to,  237;  proportionate 
population,  and  30,  31;  Re 
construction  and,  253,  270; 
relation  of,  to  crime,  473; 
restriction  of,  353,  380,  381; 
W.  H.  Baldwin  on,  277;  A. 
B.  Hart  on,  270;  J.  B. 
McMaster  on,  411-4  B.  T. 
Washington  on,  277; 
J.  A.  Andrews  on,  413,  414; 
Republican  party  and,  31; 
in  British  West  Indies, 
27;  in  Cape  Colony;  27, 
34,  35;  in  Colorado,  31; 
in  Connecticut  31;  in  Illi 
nois,  33;  in  Jamaica,  35;  in 
Minnesota,  3 1 ;  in  Wiscon 
sin,  31 ; 

Qualifications  for  372;  re 
strictions  on,  28,  29,  30,  412; 
tests  for,  37 1 ;  a  state's  right, 
418;  in  Pennsylvania,  30, 
34;  woman's,  412- 

Sugar  cane,  white  and  Negro 
labour  in  crop,  451,  452; 
Italians  in  Louisiana,  173 

Sunny  Side  Company,  180,  181 

Supervision  of  mulatto  ad 
ministration,  necessity  of, 
402 

Supplies,  advancing,  to  Negro 
sharehands,  118 

Swedes,  as  janitors,  157 

Taft,  William,  on  Negro  in 
politics,  353,  371;  at  Tuske- 
gee,  371 

Taylor,  R.  S.,  on  Delta,  83 


Teachers  of  Negro  schools, 
Southern  attitude  toward, 
272-4 

Teeth,  filing  of,  Cuban 
soldiers  and,  395 

Tenantry,  Italian  and  perma 
nency,  192,  193;  Negro  and 
permanency,  127,  130 

Tennessee,  mulattoes  and 
Negroes  in,  41 

Terrell,  R.   H.,  on  Roosevelt, 

311 
Texas,  mulattoes  and  Negroes 

in,  41;  Negroes  in  1900,  65 
Thriftlessness,  Negro,  100,  102 
Tobacco,    decline      of     Negro 

operatives    in,     523;    white 

and   Negro  labour   in,   450, 

451 
Tontitown,  Italian  settlement 

at,  181 
Trade  unions  and  the  Negro, 

166,  168,  455,  456 
Transvaal,    Negro    population 

of,    compared    with  that   of 

Mississippi,  46 
Travel,  Negro  love  for,  no 
Tribe,     polity       of      African, 

compared    with    plantation 

government,   376 
Trinidad,  Negro  population  of, 

compared     with     that      of 

Mississippi,    47 
Tuskegee,  328;  Taft  at,  371 
Twain,     Mark,     see    Clemens, 

S.  L. 
2,000  A.  D.,  Forecast  of  Negro 

population  in,  505 
Types  of  Negroes,  40 

"Understanding  clause,"  355, 

Union  County,  Miss. ,  economic 
efficiency  of  Negro  in,  178 

United  States,  percentage  of 
Negro  population,  49 

Unreliability,  Negro,  109,  192, 
199,  200 

Urban  population,  Negro, 
B.  T.  Washington  on,  146, 
147;  in  North,  52,  53 


554      The  American  Race  Problem 


Value  of  products  per  acre, 
Italian  and  Negro  labour, 
Sunny  Side,  183 

Venality  of  Negro  vote,  362, 
368 

' '  Veneeriging  Peace  Coven 
ant"  and  native  suffrage, 
South  Africa,  391 

Waddell,  A.  M.,  on  Negro  vote 
in  North  Carolina,  365 
(note) 

Wages,  Mississippi  Delta,  112 
Waiters,     Negro,    decline    of, 

JS9 

Wanamaker,  John,  on  Negro 
business  men,  153 

Warner,  0.  D.,  Negro  comment 
on  death  of,  434 

Washington,  Booker  T.,  a 
mulatto,  430;  estimate  of 
Negro  population  in  1900, 
497;  on  future  of  American 
Negro,  204,  411;  on  govern 
ment  without  representa 
tion,  392,  393;  on  industrial 
education,  89;  on  industrial 
prejudice,  168,  in  the  South, 
165;  on  lawless  conditions 
in  the  South,  73  et  seq. ;  on 
mulatto  agitators,  434;  on 
needs  of  the  Negro  race,  411; 
on  Negro  Federal  appoint 
ments,  307;  on  Negro 
immorality,  251;  on  Negro 
industrial  opportunity  in 
the  North,  17,  19,  163,  164; 
on  Negro  migration  146,  to 
North,  53;  on  Negro  rights, 
251;  on  Negro  suffrage, 
277;  on  race  relations,  299, 
300 

Washington- Roosevelt  dinner, 
243  et  seq.,  295,  314,  315, 
318,  et  seq. 

Washington,  D.  0.,  industrial 
ostracism  in,  170;  inter 
racial  colour  line,  409  (note) 

Washington  County,  Miss., 
Negro  population  of,  44, 
48,  5° 


Washtenaw  County,  Mich., 
estimate  of  Negro  population 
on  Mississippi  proportion,  52 

Wealth,  Negro,  150;  distribu 
tion  of,  135 

Weeks  ville,  changing  popula 
tion  of,  155 

West,  H.  L.,  on  Negro 
capacity  for  self-govern 
ment,  415;  on  race  war  in 
North  Carolina,  365  (note), 
385*  386 

West  Indies,  mulattoes  of,  402  ; 
Negroes  in,  Colquhoun  on, 
376,F.  A.  Ober  on,  395,396; 
Negro  political  rights  in,  27  ; 
Negro  population  compared 
with  that  of  Mississippi,  47 

West  Virginia,  erection  of 
state,  8 

Western  states,  discrimina 
tion  in,  32;  proportion  of 
Negro  population,  48 

White  House,  see  Washing 
ton-Roosevelt  dinner 

White  labourers,  absence  of  in 
Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta,  87, 
88 

White  manipulation  of  Negro 
in  politics,  368;  in  South 
Africa,  387,  388 

White  race,  superiority  of, 
207,  208 

White  supremacy,  North 
Carolina,  385—7;  and  Negro 
suffrage,  352;  in  Cape 
Colony,  36 

Willcox,  Walter  F.,  47;  on 
industrial  decline  of  Negro  in 
South,  171;  on  Negro  wealth, 
150;  writings  of,  530,  531 

Williams,  D.  H.,  206 

Williams,  Fannie  Barrier,  on 
industrial  decline  of  Negro 
in  Chicago,  157 

Wilmington,  N.  0.,  necessity 
for  white  control,  385 

Wilson,  H.  A.,  on  race  solidari 
ty  in  Africa,  239 

Winston,  G.  T.,  on  Southern 
race  conditions,  93 


Index 


555 


Wisconsin,  Negro  suffrage  in, 
3  T  ;  percentage  of  Negro 
population,  45 

Women,  in  fields,  Italian 
versus  the  Negro,  186,  187; 
Negro,  decline  of,  as  house 
hold  servants,  158,  159; 
suffrage  in  United  States, 
412;  white,  and  inter 
marriage  (Mass.),  62 

Woodworth,  Frank  G.,  on 
separate  car  law,  337 

Worcester,  Dean,  on  race 
hatred  in  the  Philippines, 
466,  467 


Work,  and  race  respect,  88, 
97 ;  Negro  disinclination  to, 
199 

WTu   Ting   Fang,    25 

Yale  university,  Negro  at,  23 

Yazoo-Mississippi  Delta,  82 
et  seq. ;  absence  of  rape  in,  86 ; 
importance  of,  in  future  of 
Negro,  84 ;  its  fertility, 
Richard  S.  Taylor  on,  83; 
percentage  of  Negro  popu 
lation,  85;  railroads  and 
increase  of  Negro  population 
in,  87 


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